Between meeting hungry writers at a recent SCBWI event, the conclusion of Amazon’s Breakthrough Novel contest, and participating in the Writer’s Digest pitch slam in, oh, two hours has gotten me thinking about writers who are still in the early stages of their careers. I’m talking the writers who haven’t landed an agent or seen their story on paper other than the stuff that comes out of their home printer.
I can appreciate the joy of writing. Back in my graduate school days, grades and competition between the students forced me to produce fiction. Writing for different websites gave me solid deadlines I had to meet. After graduating, the thrill of seeing a project form its inception to a conclusion helped me to keep working on projects.
So my question today is, what keeps you motivated to work on your craft when there’s no guarantee that something will come from it? What gets you up early in the morning or keeps you pecking away late at night at your stories? I’d love to hear what different writers do or have done to keep them pounding away at their keyboards.
May 27, 2009 at 1:25 pm
The characters who reside in my brain just won’t leave me alone.
May 27, 2009 at 3:13 pm
I agree with Stephanie. My characters keep me awake at night.
Also, if I wasn’t writing, I’d have to tackle the dishes. Avoidance is as good a motivation as any.
May 27, 2009 at 4:49 pm
We’re so passionate about our work that we have no choice. It’s what we do. It’s who we are.
May 27, 2009 at 6:55 pm
It’s like breathing…we do it because can’t NOT do it.
May 27, 2009 at 7:47 pm
I have to write, but I don’t have to write novels. That can be a long, lonely road. Writing for magazines gives you instant feedback (comparatively) and a larger audience.
What keeps me going on the novels is the encouragement I get along the way. I enter contests so I can get that instant feedback. I also submit weekly to a crit group online and meet bi-weekly with real world writer friends to brainstorm and discuss the world of publishing. If not for these things, I’d probably just write short stories and articles. But sticking to those longer works and finishing them is hugely satisfying, so I am glad I’ve found people to keep me interested.
May 27, 2009 at 10:23 pm
I think it’s just sheer stubbornness on my part.
Also: I enjoy it.
Also: I would like to make something. I think it’s a basic human desire to make something beyond yourself, whether it be art, or a child, or a garden, or a book. My chosen “beyond-myself” to make is books.
May 28, 2009 at 12:54 am
It’s my passion. And, yeah, I want to get published and you don’t do that without some serious drive. The stories in my head need to be told, even if they only ever get read by a select few.
May 28, 2009 at 3:03 am
I keep writing because new ideas come to me in the night and I can’t sleep until I think them through. I finally bothered to tell someone about my pile of stories a year or two ago and they convinced me to look for an agent. I had no idea that a regular person like me could actually get an agent (maybe I can’t!). I have many storyboarded stories, which help me get some sleep at night. I can grab them and turn them into actual written stories when I want and then I feel like I’m checking something off of a never ending list.
And since my never ending list was growing, I finally pushed forward and began to query agents – for the first time ever! I’ve now hit a very teeny amount of agents, and am slowly finding more to query – Michael Stearns received one in his inbox last week and it was so exciting.
The part that’s scary is, what if nothing comes of it? And WHY did I pick the simple picture book with only 30 words to query around versus a different story? (because it cracks me up)
I think what keeps me going is the fact that I know that I’m learning a lot and now I feel like there’s new room in my “files” to add another story in the making. Perhaps I’ll query the middle grade book next. That’ll free me up some more room to go ahead with the other storyboard…
May 28, 2009 at 9:05 am
Well, my bare bones answer is that I personally feel there is nothing greater than moving people with words. So I’m always motivated by that one desire. Like those above me who submitted comments, it’s true that we all have stories that need to be told.. keep them inside too long and it’s crazy making.
I’ve submitted directly to editors before and received great suggestions. But the fact that I can love my rejection letters is a little unnerving. One minute I’m motivated and the words spill out like I’m getting a little help from the other side. Next minute, I’m sitting on my ass in front of the computer all day perusing iTunes and I start to convince myself this is going nowhere. I basically need someone to sit next to me with a hot branding iron ready to poke me if I start getting up to desert my writing.
As you can see, I have heaps more to write about the current LACK of motivation I am feeling and if you care to hear more, I’m happy to pour it on thick. In fact, I would probably come to some sort of peace in my life (as would all of you dear agents and editors) if the desire to write would just up and disappear…
May 28, 2009 at 10:25 am
Thanks for all the great responses!
May 28, 2009 at 2:56 pm
I write because the stories just keep popping up in my head. I call those unexplained occurances, “God things.”
Anyway that is what keeps me writing.
I know I may never get published, I’m totally okay with that, believe it or not. I just enjoy jumping into another reality either by reading or by what I am writing. And I’m learning so much and meeting many new and interesting people, so it’s all good.
May 28, 2009 at 9:34 pm
Because Spider Solotaire gets boring after awhile.
May 29, 2009 at 12:12 pm
My motivation is pretty simple.
The desire to create a meaningful, fun, interesting story motivates me to write.
Money motivates me to seek getting published.
May 30, 2009 at 8:33 pm
If I didn’t write, I would probably die.
Seriously. If I didn’t put my ideas on paper, I’d probably get hit by a truck ‘cuz I was thinking about a story while crossing the street.
May 31, 2009 at 10:10 pm
The freedom of the creative process and a love of language motivate me to write. The philosophy that you never truly fail until you stop trying, coupled with the fact that I have two young sons watching me pursue my dream, motivate me to keep revising and submitting.
That being said, after each rejection letter I receive, I give myself carte blanche to have a 24 hour pity party with as much chocolate as I deem necessary. When hour 25 rolls around, I blast some music, shake off the grumpies and get back to writing.
June 1, 2009 at 11:23 am
Creating characters, plotlines, and perfect sentences is infinitely more fun than being passively entertained. I could get depressed by the wealth of brilliant manuscripts out there that I’m competing with. But I know the world will continue to be a wonderful place as long as there are so many people out there with great imagination and initiative.
June 1, 2009 at 2:14 pm
I agree with Stephanie, Anne, and KB. For me, it’s write or suffer insomnia for life. The characters nestled in the dim-lit nooks of my brain demand to appear on the page. The dreamy settings become so intricate they spill over the boundaries of my imagination and insist on appearing in this world. Poems, stories, novels, whatever — they will not be ignored. Writing is like breathing — or more likey, for me, writing IS breathing.
June 1, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Passion. I have always written. I recently went over papers from as far back as grade school. Stories, poems, essays. Part of my essence is artful expression: writing, music, painting, movement, sex…it is all Venus. It is all passion, which is life itself.
I write very well. I make love to my reader; through tension, through voice, through intrigue, emotion, vicarious experience.
So far, I must not query as well. Sigh. Perserverence. Stubborness. Love. It’s what I do. When I find an agent, I will be a happier woman. Until then, I will write. Actually, after that, I will still write.
June 2, 2009 at 1:43 pm
As an author-illustrator (or more precisely, an illustrator-author), I get possessed by the fever, once I have a story figured out, to see it all come together on paper. Plus, drawing goofy animals in a square-dance competition (for example) is how I get my kicks on a Friday night. What can I say, I’m a geek!
June 3, 2009 at 12:13 am
I really don’t know why or even how I continue to write. It’s painstaking, frustrating, depressing and trying. I’ve cried, smiled, danced and freaked out over my work. I’ve hated it so much sometimes that I promise never to write again, but somehow and for some reason I’ll find myself, 1:30am changing a character’s hair color or rewriting a paragraph. I guess it’s not so much doing it because I love it, but rather doing it because I have to. It’s as much a part of me as my name or the scar on my leg I got when I was six.
June 3, 2009 at 12:21 am
It just occurred to me that there may be a special place for us all in the DSM IV. I prefer to think we were all bitten by the muses.
June 5, 2009 at 10:05 am
My stories run constantly through my head. There have even been times when I wake in the middle of the night with the thought that I need to add a detail to a scene. Quite frankly, I don’t think I’d know what to do with myself if I wasn’t writing or reading. Probably raiding the Ben & Jerry’s. But seriously, I’ve come to writing only in the last five years, and it finally feels like I’ve found myself. I always felt a little lost before.