Getting back that writing "spark".

Like I said in yesterday's post, I really need to get back to work on my book. I think I need to start another set of short term goals and perhaps a daily work requirement. It's been long enough that I'm a tad scared that I lost the spark (by "long" I mean it has been a month since college started, and my editing time has been severely limited).


True, there have been times when I have had... well, time, but something always holds me back. Part of it is Writer's Depression, but mostly I think I may be burned out on that particular story. I've tried to begin new books in the meantime, with little success. (One of them might still be written someday because of a pretty fun setting, but all I could think of while I wrote in it was The Sometimes Sword.) It's a dilemma, for sure.


I'm starting to think that I need to do what I had to do when writing the first draft: knuckle down and get over it. I can't afford to let writing become less a part of me. I need that spark back, and sometimes that takes work. Painful, painful work.


So tonight I begin again in earnest. My goal is a final draft ready for submission by the end of the year. I will make this happen, and I will not give up until I have at least fifty rejection letters. Less would be fine by me. So what if this is only my second real attempt at a book. No author's story is the same, and I plan to go all out!


What about you? What are your short-term writing goals?