Motivation Isn't Enough

A friend of mine asked me recently, "What motivates you to continue writing?"

That could have been taken in a number of ways. He didn't mean the question negatively, or so he assured me. It helped that he gave me three options to choose from:

1) Did I continue for the eventual recognition? He knows me well enough to know my ego, and how much it likes to be fed.

2) Or was it the allure of eventual money? I've not hidden my desire to eventually make writing my primary source of income.

3) Or finally, was my ongoing motivation the craft itself? Did I continue what I did for the sake of art, or (if you will,) the sake of ART?

To all of this, I replied, "Yes."

First off, I love that he saw all of these as eventual realities. It doesn't seem to occur to him that I might not find success.

Of course, people will eventually recognize how fantastic my writing is. They'll giggle at the right places, cringe at the purposefully cringe worthy sections, and crave more. This will result in my stories selling, and some amount of monetary success. And obviously, none of this will happen without the craft improving. Unless I create good stories, there's nothing worth recognizing or buying.

Honestly, each of those motivations feed the others. And, I've begun to see the motivations bear fruit, to some degree.

First off, I can tell the stories are getting better. Partly, this is due to feedback from my beta readers and occasional publishers. But moreover, I'M enjoying them. I've mentioned before, how I used to believe that being a good reader naturally made me a good writer. Then I'd write a story that might have been good enough, but good enough never is.

The craft is improving. If I'm honest, I'm finally (consistently) writing stories that I would buy and read myself.

I'm also receiving some recognition beyond my beta readers. Form rejections are turning into personal rejections. Stories are making it beyond the first rounds of editorial slush piles and competitions. It's not a given, but it looks like one or more of my stories might make it into a real-honest-to-goodness-professional-anthology. More on that when and if it actually happens.

Oh, and a story finally sold.

Sold.

At pro rates, no less, which is an important distinction. At least, to me it is.

I've self published stories. I've had stories accepted in non-paying online publications. With apologies to those publishers, most of those stories wouldn't have made it in a pro market.

But at least one has. (I'll post about it in January, when it's available.)

All of that means that within this past month, I've achieved, to some small degree, each of those 3 motivations. People are liking my work. Some of that work has sold. And, through writing daily, the craft itself is continuing to improve.

So, now that I've tasted a small part of success, I asked myself which of the options continues to provide the most satisfaction and motivation?

I can't say. All I know is that I'm hungry for more. Hopefully, that's a good sign. I've heard of writers who sold one or three or so stories, and figured they had it made. I'm quite certain I don't. Since starting writing again a little over a year ago, I've been adamant about continually producing and improving. No more shortcuts to success. There's no substitute for striving to get better and hard work.

If I had to choose one I'd pick #3. I'm glad to be one of those writers who enjoys writing as much as having written. At least, I do on most days. And I can immerse myself in a story I'm writing as much, or sometimes more, as I can in one that someone else has written. It's harder, but it's more fun.

I still want to make this my primary income source one day. So #2 remains part of the long term goal. And my ego hasn't been fed all day, so we mustn't forget the importance of #1.

But yeah. It's the craft.

At least, at this moment it is.

Back to the novel...

Write What You Feel (and more)

You know that old saying, "Write what you know?" If you're interested in writing, and the fact that you're reading this blog suggests that you are, then the answer is probably "yes."

You've probably also heard multiple remarks about the saying, some funny and others not so funny. If not, I'll give an example and let you decide if it's funny or not.

"Hey Scott. Why do you write these weird stories?"
"What do you mean?"
"You know, like this one about alien cat people who use their advanced technology to invade our timeline, starting the zombie war decades before it originally happened in 2032?"
"Oh. Well like they say, 'write what you know.'"

I know. You saw that coming a mile away. That's the advanced time technology at work.

Here's the thing. "Write what you know," doesn't mean only write what you're familiar with. Otherwise, we'd never have stories about a police box that's bigger on the inside, carrying an alien with two hearts across time and space. And you know what? That'd be a shame.

Write what you know means write what you feel.

Here's some examples. Do you know the elation you feel when you see your child for the first time? Can you recall a time when your heart was torn in two by the loss of a loved one? How about the bone chilling terror of someone sticking a gun in your face and demanding your money?

Write about that. AND HERE'S THE BEST PART! You don't have to write about a newborn child anymore than you have to write about a robbery or anything else from your life. You can, but you don't have to.

Take the joy of the newborn child and use those real emotions to describe the happiness of a long awaited reunion. Take that loss of a loved one, and draw on those feelings when your character looses her job. Take the terror of the mugging and show the fear of dangling over the edge of a cliff.

Write what you feel. Sometimes, even write about what made you feel that way.

I'll add this to it. Write what you feel like writing about. That'll carry you through 90% of your writing duties. Yes, I made that statistic up on the spot, but it feels right, doesn't it? Sometimes, you have to push through as a writer and finish projects (or start them. Or continue them.) However, most of the time, your passions can carry you through the work.

Another example. I wrote a long outline for a story last night. It's a good outline of a story that I've wanted to tell for a few months now, but couldn't figure out what really happened. Now I know. But guess what? It's still not ready. I could have started it, but I didn't want to. Something else was on my mind. That's okay. It'll wait.

Instead, I finished and submitted another story, which I'd also put aside temporarily. And, like my last blog entry, I made progress.

Take those feelings-- the grief, the triumph, the hope and the despair. Which one, or ones do you want to write about? Which idea has you jumping up and down inside? When possible, write about where those passions are. And always, write what you feel.

Why Submitting Your Work Helps Your Writing Career

Why Submitting Your Work Helps Your Writing Career http://zite.to/1aU9Mst

Reading out loud

I've given up, and believe me, it's about time.  I've given up on mediocrity and on sending off manuscripts that feel "good enough."  Good enough rarely is.

Reading the story out loud helped make this a reality.

Before I'd write a story.  Then I'd rewrite it, or at least give it a good editing, because that's what you're supposed to do.  Maybe I'd touch it up when I formatted the document to match the particular editor's submission guidelines.  Most likely though I'd send it off and just hope for the best.

That's probably one of the reasons the rejection letters far outweighed the acceptance ones.

It finally occurred to me that if I'm really going to pursue writing, I need to do it correctly.  And that means properly rewriting my work.

I finished my latest short story about an hour ago.  To date it may be the one I'm most proud of.  In the past I'd finish one and send it off when I could say, "That's not too bad."  This time I reworked it until I could say "I like this."

Here's what happened.  I wrote it.  Then I wrote reworked it into a second, more polished draft.  That's where I've usually stopped in the past.  I read through it again and improved it, and almost fell to the temptation of thinking it was finished.

I just wasn't that happy with it, and wasn't sure why though.  So I tried something that I've heard some writers do.  I read the story out loud.

Immediately, the parts that weren't working jumped out.  They practically attacked me.  What was hidden before now seemed obvious.  Some of the mistakes were with repeated words.  Some were clumsy sentences, which I'd already trimmed but still didn't work.  Some were embarrassing errors that likely would have sent my story to the rejected pile.  That's where it would have belonged.

I've never been able to bother with reading my work out loud before.  At least this time it made a world of difference.  Hopefully enough to garner a sale.