What is your Motivation?

Discussion in 'The Lounge' started by Moe1795, Dec 15, 2016.

  1. yeon

    yeon Member

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    For me it's because I get inspired by reading other works. I tend to be really critical of anything I read so if I read something bad, I'm motivated to write something better. If I read something good, I get moved to the point of motivation, like, 'I must write something like this too..!'

    I think the biggest part for me is the thought that my work may eventually move someone else as certain works have moved me.
     
  2. halisme

    halisme Contributor Contributor

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    I build worlds and use writing as a means of exploring and sharing them with others. If I could just release a "world of Ice and Fire" style atlas, I would. But I have to get people attached to the world first.
     
  3. Phil Mitchell

    Phil Mitchell Banned Contributor

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    A few motivations.

    Storytelling for me is a form of control. When the chaos of life builds up and I feel powerless to change it I can go back to my story where I can exert order and have the power of a creator.

    Sexual expression. I ain't getting sex irl so why not express desires on the page.

    Gender Dysphoria - The strongest motivation of them all. I can live as a woman vicariously through fiction. Then I have to change scenes to a bunch of blokes talking and I'm reminded, yeah it's just a product.

    I wanted to create the story I wanted to see. So rather than waiting for someone else to make it, I may as well. I care about having readers but if it was something only I read and enjoyed periodically over the years or can pass on to family, that works for me.
     
  4. Rosacrvx

    Rosacrvx Contributor Contributor

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    The first time I read BayView's post I strongly disagreed. Then I remembered that I didn't write for around 15 years because, amongst other sources of discouragement, I knew I would never get published, so what was the point? My thoughts on the matter were exactly how BayView puts it: "I can daydream way faster than I can write".
    I deeply regret those 15 years, but I see the point.
    However, not having an audience was not the only reason that kept me from writing.
    This was before the internet. My only audience was the limited group of friends that happened to share my immediate school/work/clubbing surroundings. My friends didn't know that there was a genre called fantasy (neither did I). They would ask me what century and country my story was taking place. Friends and media would tell me that I had to write historical fiction if I was going to remotely write about the past, or not at all. I would take a look at stuff being published by the few publishers in my country and my heart would sink. (I still do, and my heart still sinks. I get all my horror fiction from abroad, for instance.)
    I'll admit that the internet changed all this. It was possible to self publish a book before, too, but it was absurdly expensive! Nowadays you can publish your work for free.
    And it still doesn't answer the question "why do I write". In fact, the more I write the less I care about an audience. I write because I have a story to tell and I have to tell it. Hopefully, the story will find its audience somehow. If not, I want to be that audience. My favourite part of writing is when I pick up something I had even forgotten I'd written and I ask myself: "Wow, did I really write this?! It's damned good!"
    And this is why I regret those 15 years I spent not practising because of prejudice, discouragement, wrong notions, and lack of a practical outlet. More than an "audience", I think it was a lack of an outlet to reach that potential audience.
    Nowadays, however, I think I'd still write if I was the last person alive on Earth. Who knows, maybe one day, centuries after I was gone, aliens would find my work and like it. Most aliens would like better writers, but maybe one of two (in their big galaxy) would actually like what I write, if aliens are as strange as people are.
    Or not. But now that I finally learned how to write, I'll be damned if I stop! Aliens or not!
     
  5. Rosacrvx

    Rosacrvx Contributor Contributor

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    And this too.
     

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