Writing is a misunderstood practice. People think you just sit there and type. Most people around you dont understand it or care. A lot of writers dont even have a audience. So what is it that keeps you going at it day after day? I wanna read what you guys got to say.
I think my motivation is I just have all these ideas. I want to form them and shape them into stories that I am proud of and others can enjoy. I'm not looking to make the bestsellers list or anything, just write good stories. And traditionally publish, not self publish.
Does anything happen in your daily life that ever sets you back or even make you feel like what you are doing is pointless. Its just that everytime I get the muse really hard something happens with people around me or just situations that prevent me from dedicating as much time and energy as I would like on my writing
I'm going through some rough times in life and writing helps anchor me. I also enjoy it greatly. Don't think I need anymore motivation.
I find motivation everywhere, and if I can't find it, then I create it. I could be listening to music, and the combination of lyrics and rythm would hit me with sudden motivation, or I can simply "create" it by thinking about topics of my interest. A single idea gives me enough motivation to start making up a story.
I need to say this before I die. I want a nice stack of books at my funeral. If nobody gives a shit, chuck 'em into the hole along with me. I'm not following the audience (writing to genre), if someone wants to follow me - cool.
I have no motivation, only an unexplainable urge that has been there since I was young. I don't consider myself a writer at all as I have nothing to back this up, however I write, whether good or shit.
My motivation is the acute sense of pseudo-dyslexic, schizophrenic paranoia that paints my every human interaction if I don't set idea to parchment, daily. I feel fear if I don't write. It hurts to stop. I've written halves of whole books about garbage just to keep the pain from worming too deep into my mind. Then, one day I looked at the scripts for six seasons of a TV show, fifteen assorted fan-fiction novellas, countless short stories, and two separate, 150,000 word sci-fi military technical manuals I had just simple jerkoff-written throughout my life and said: "Huh... I should probably find a way to... like... apply this obsession... or something."
An audience. That's what I keep coming back to in threads like this. I write because someone else will read. If no one else is going to read? I can daydream way faster than I can write, so why go through the trouble of sorting out words and spelling and phrasing and expression when I could just dream it all? If no one else will read? I won't write.
Writing is sort of therapeutic for me. It helps me let my feelings out, lets me understand myself better. It also helps me understand my past better. I've done a ton of stuff, so far my life has been very interesting, and most of what I write is inspired or rooted into something I've done, something in my past. Applying the past experience into these similar but imagined events helps me go back into my old shoes, walk in them a bit, figure things out. Hard to explain, but I hope you catch my drift.
When I get deep into writing its like being in a trance and I feel like a conduit or a gateway between dimensions. Maybe that sounds like too much, but when my writing takes me places I couldnt even imagine before, that really is how it feels
I write because it's the only way to explore my story. Written words are way, way more detailed than anything I could dream up in my head, so in order to really 'see/feel' my story I have to put the words down. I am not even talking about research - it's a well known fact here in WF that I am research-obsessed . I don't know why it works that way, but in the end I just want to 'experience' my story.
I... I'm not sure. Oh God no, not again. This is just like when my friends parents asked me what I did for fun. I don't think they were expecting me to cry into my hands and sob, 'who am I? What am I even doing with this life?'
This is an attitude I've never understood. I sing in the car when no one can hear me. Tons of other people do, too. Why sing if nobody listens? The answer is that it gives me joy. Writing is the same way. I write because it gives me joy. Also, I love crafting fine prose - prose I can read aloud again and again and be proud of. I love the music of the story. Of course I'll write when no one else will read. Same reason I'll sing when no one else will listen.
I have always loved reading so much I decided to try making a book myself, once I acquired a means (the word processor, back in 1994) that allowed me to feel my way along the project and make changes easily. And was delighted when I discovered that I can—and did—write a book that 'works.' I do it purely for pleasure. I'm not driven to write; I love to write. I love knowing there are characters out there who wouldn't exist if it wasn't for me. They are mine in a way few other things are.
I'll sing in the car, maybe, but I won't work at my singing. I won't do scales and re-sing difficult passages and examine my phrasing and... (I'm out of ideas of how to make singing better, since I've never tried to do it...) For me, actual writing is hard. I don't think it really gives me joy - the ideas and the daydreaming part of it gives me joy, but then sitting down and transcribing all the stuff from my head through my fingers into marks on a screen, and then reviewing and messing around with those marks until they express the stuff from my head as clearly as I want them to? That's work. But I can understand that others focus on different aspects of writing. Getting just the right word is a puzzle, a challenge, and when the words fit together it's great for them. I can see that. But for me, writing is mostly about the story and the characters, and the words themselves are just a nuisance.
@BayView For me, actual writing is hard. I don't think it really gives me joy - the ideas and the daydreaming part of it gives me joy, but then sitting down and transcribing all the stuff from my head through my fingers into marks on a screen, and then reviewing and messing around with those marks until they express the stuff from my head as clearly as I want them to? That's work. I hear you my friend, why can't they finish that machine that plucks Ideas and visions in your head and make them videos? One of Stephen King's books, I believe it was "The Tommyknockers", a guy made a machine that took his thoughts and put them on paper. That would be awesome!
I hope you are not equating your writing work to "someone who sings in their car". If I felt I couldnt show my writing to anyone then what good is it?. After all writing is meant to be a comunication tool.
I have an outlet to practice what I have in my mind when I write. Putting pen to paper (or fingers to keys) forces the ideas in my head into a physical form. Singing, talking, daydreaming... they are transient means of thinking. But writing makes an idea concrete, even if nobody else looks at it. When I write something for myself, I want to accomplish something. I have a goal, and getting to that goal counts as practice. I read what I write over and over, then put it to sleep, wake it back up and read it again. If I succeeded in my goal, I usually burn or delete what I wrote (depending on medium) and move on. What motivates me to do this is a compulsion to connect with something. If it isn't another person, it is the cloud of... stuff... out there. I do connect with something out there when I write, as I am writing. After the work is done, having someone read it is completely different. I am not connected with others as they read what I wrote. It's almost like I have trained the words and let them go. It is up to them now, they aren't mine any more. Speaking of which, I need to write today, it has been too long without.
To have a craft to perfect and share with others is what motivates me. The thrill of getting better and better.
