Yeah, I'm talking to you!!

It's been a while since I posted anything here, but...

 Like I've said elsewhere, I really hate opening a post with that line but, hey, truth hurts, huh?

Anywho, I've been sliding off the writing wagon, a lot lately, and have been putting some thought into why that may be. It's not for lack of time....I have scads of that. It's not for lack of encouragement. I have tons of that, as well...my wife makes sure of it. I think it boils down to one factor....

Lack of discipline.

There, I've said it.

I've always been the type of person who, if things didn't come naturally, I didn't put a lot of effort into doing them. As I've grown older I've come to realize, more and more, that something worth doing is something worth putting the effort into doing it well. If things were always easy, there would be no satisfaction in getting them done. Take NaNoWriMo (please! :P ) for instance. There were days when I did not want to sit down and put pixels to virtual paper. Some days, I didn't. But I always caught up and it was so satisfying to 'win'....to actually finish....that it made the effort worthwhile. 

Sometimes the oldest lessons out there are the most profound. 

That said, I think I'm going to try to do a few things to self-motivate and get some writing done. After all the name of this blog is "Left and Write"....not "Left and Slack".

Here are a few ideas I've been tossing around....

• Doing a weekly writing challenge. Yes, I know there are a lot of those floating out there, especially by my pals on Google Plus, but I think I need something more tailored to my interests. At least to start with. Perhaps a 500 word minimum, with a week to complete, which I post here for perusal/harassment, etc.
• A simple 100 word challenge, taking prompts from the Seventh Sanctum site. (I've had some good success with this in the past)
• Taking suggestions via a Twitter or G+ post, maybe for a 200-300 word short story and posting the results here. 

So, I think I might try one....or all...of these ideas and see which stick and which fall to the floor in a burning heap.

What do you do to stay disciplined?