What encourages you?

So, I just spent the last half hour writing a blog, and I tried to post it for Wednesday, but I had the wrong date, and it posted it today. Then, I copied it, deleted the original, and tried to paste it, and poof! It was gone.

So I guess whatever I said wasn't that important. I'll try again :)

I was going to give you an idea of what encourages me, but that's gone into cyberspace. I was going to encourage you to deepen your relationship with God so that He will shine forth in your writing -- zapped.

Instead, I'm going to ask for feedback.

Now, my husband asks for feedback when he doesn't have a clue what to do -- "Honey, if you could do anything at all for your birthday, what would you want to do?" or something to that effect. I figured his ploy out quickly, especially when my answers showed up on my birthday.

However, in this case, I really want to know what encourages you to keep on writing. What keeps you going through the rejections, the re-writes, the long tedious hours of writing? Where do you get your ideas? How do you reconcile your writing with your faith? How do you weave faith into your writing without sounding like a sermon?

I'll share my answers to the above questions:
1. The story is in there and it has to come out.
2. I understand rejection just means I haven't found the right editor yet.
3. Re-writes always make the story better.
4. I'd rather write than work a regular job. Now, that's tedious.
5. I get the ideas from where ever I can find them -- the newspaper, conversations, television shows, books I've read.
6. My writing mirrors my faith life, I think -- most often my characters are not always nice people, are confused about their future, pained by their past, and wish their present belonged to someone else.
7. Now, that one I struggle with. I want the reader to get it right away, so I'm not always subtle. Kind of like I am in real life. I hate getting hit over the head with a two-by-four when I've made a mistake, and so I'm really working on not doing that to my characters.

Now, it's your turn. I really do want to hear. And if your answer turns up in the mouth of one of my characters somewhere down the road, well -- thanks.