With social media fragmenting, I’m bringing back my old “You Tell Me” Wednesday discussions to try to get good old fashioned blog conversations going. If you’re reading in a feed reader or via email, please click through to the post to leave a public comment and join the discussion!
Writing a book, as may have discovered, is quite hard. No matter how enthusiastically you start, at some point you’ll run out of steam. Your adrenaline will crater. At some point, inevitably, it will become work.
What keeps you motivated to push past the obstacles and continue moving forward?
My routine is very important for my productivity, but at the end of the day, I think what motivates me is a fear of how I’ll feel if I never finish the project I’m working on.
What about you?
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Art: Detail of Jeune fille au seuil du jardin de Bellevue by Édouard Manet
For my latest WIP, it’s been the story.
This has been the longest I have ever worked on a single idea – roughly 7 years from initial inception and trying to work the plot/storyline out, to research, to writing.
But in those 7 years, I have been able to hardly write anything else – no short stories, no other novel ideas – after having been motivated almost annually to do both, over decades.
So, to a certain degree, I guess you could say my motivation was obsession – obsession with the story, with the characters, with the confluence of themes.
Even now, with it done, and off in hopes of finding an agent, one-page synopsis written and all, the story is continuing to interfere, in a sense, with my producing anything else.
As a career writer, and semi-retired journalist, I have had news stories etc push me in a similar manner, though, once done, really done, and published, I have been able to move on.
Never before have I had this happen with fiction.
Part of it could be – I mentioned research – I enjoyed the process, the discovery, the ‘finds’ in dark corners of even darker, older, mustier libraries. Part of it – its origins are a ‘literary history mystery’ – as with my journalism, was an obsession to ‘set the record straight,’ to ‘get the story out.’
But it was an enjoyable obsession.
I essentially had to force myself to end the story, though the ending, and the beginning, both changed frequently over those 7 glorious years filled with new friends and new foes as characters.
Enjoyable enough that now, I feel ready to finally start on the next one. And probably a few short stories during July, as was my habit.
I will confess, at one time, the desire to publish, and to become ‘rich and famous,’ while doing it – when I was decades younger – was the motivation behind my annual production.
Now, in what the Spanish refer to as my ‘tercer edad,’ just shy of ‘jubilacion,’ a sense of time quickening, opportunity closing, and the need to ‘get the story out’ has overwhelmed the earlier motivation.
I no longer feel the ‘need’ to be published. Though I WANT the story to get out.
I’m scared to answer because I have gone completely rogue from all writing advice ever. It won’t work for specific goals, like “finish a novel by such-and-such,” but it’s working pretty well for my peace of mind. What keeps me motivated is writing what I feel like writing. I’m writing a book right now that’s my comfort, my therapy, and the way I center – the perfect formula for writing something completely unpublishable. For now, I don’t care. It’s brought me back to writing for the joy of it, which is pretty motivating.
I think it’s been different things at different times. Fear is a good one. Exposure to other folk’s creative output that I find amazing or inspiring (music, art, writing, etc.). Like if a new Wes Anderson film (or short film) comes out and I’m like, damn, look at Wes Anderson doing his thing and I want to be a person doing a thing! Or my writing friend egging me on, telling me she’s ready to read something of mine.
Drafting is usually a chore for me, so I have to set up lots of structure and tangible tracking to get it done. Revision is my reward!! I love everything from reworking a saggy middle to mulling over line edits with the attention of a poet.
It’s a good question and I probably wouldn’t answer it the same way from one day to the next. Sometimes it’s like reading a good book, in that I hate to put it down because I enjoy being in the milieu of the story and the lives of the characters.
But I’ve just completed a novel that I’ve worked on for (yikes) five years, on and off, and I’m sort of floundering, journaling, not sitting down to the keyboard to work out a story. Just fiddling with ideas, and nothing has caught me. So today I’m not feeling motivated at all.
But I won’t quit, because I know I’m happiest when I’m working on a story. Maybe that’s what motivates me—happiness. It makes me happy to figure out the people, the motivations, the plot, the wants and needs of the main character, etc. It’s like figuring out my own self.
The desire to contribute a verse, Nathan. Contribute a verse.
The story and characters in my novel keep me motivated even if I haven’t figured them out fully yet. Not setting deadlines or goals, as I think Serenity said above, is incredibly liberating. All my life I said I wanted to write a book but what I meant was I wanted to get one published, I didn’t understand how much time and energy it required.
Since I started writing seriously about two and a half years ago, I feel the joy in the actual writing, the brainstorming and puzzling out plotlines or what a character would or wouldn’t say. I plug away (almost!) every day and bit by bit the story grows. I finally get what it means to let go of the outcome and enjoy the process and feel incredibly lucky to have a longterm creative project. Having said that, I’m occasionally a little envious of friends who write short stories because they have something complete to show for the hours at their desk.
Nathan, sometimes, like now, I’m lost in your Wednesday Questions. There’s so much to look & read that it makes me dizzy in a fun way. I swear one them concerned, “What are our fears of writing?” So, I’ll just answer that here.
Originally, I started my “typing” project as a Memoir. Now, I’ve distanced myself and refer to it as a Story. Why?
I’ve been pondering whether I should reveal the true names of the other people, places, and businesses in the Story or completely blanket them. Using my own name and actual experiences present no problems with me.
Today, I’m leaning toward concealment of identities at 55% and growing by the minute. I’m not dealing with an ordinary family. If I choose to expose them, they may jeer at me or other name callings. Having a bullet pierce the back of my head is no problem. But facing the unpleasant consequences are another matter. Like being hunted down and inflicted with physical pain and torture, No dice.
Being “truthful” will make the Story totally credible, maybe too much so that it’ll be unbelievable with some. Ninety-nine percent of the folks mentioned have passed on. The co-star (I prefer that word than protagonist) has been long gone. She can’t comment. It’s just my word alone. I’m just a lone soul swimming in the sea. The drawback, her survivors, young and old, are too notable. For one, they have their generational reputations.
As I’m writing this, I’m favoring the use of face masks for all. The Story is unique and I might say one of a kind from my perspective. Actually, many of those I’ve told portions of were gung ho. Disheartening for me is that nearly all the sources I’ve gathered over the years cannot be used.
So, in the end, it’s likely I’ll wear my armor. My friend, Turtle, has warned me numerous times that I’ll be opening a Pandora’s box. Now, his lips are sealed.
When the Story is complete, I’ll definitely need your help.
p.W.s.
05-07-2024.