Tag: motivation

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

I’ve posted a lot recently on writing for an audience and writing to genre conventions.  As I’ve posted, there’s been a little uneasiness on my end…because some writers don’t need to worry about these things.  There are writers out there that will only be unnecessarily strung-out by this advice.  These are also writers who might feel really stressed out by forums and blog posts focused on heavy marketing.

There are plenty of other reasons to write and there is nothing wrong with writing for your own enjoyment.  Some writers would rather their work and their names remain private.  Some writers would rather craft a story exactly as they want it and create their story world as they wish and not have to worry about anyone else. And there are, sure, writers who want to share their work.  I’ve mentioned before that I was foisting my writing on my parents’ unsuspecting dinner guests back when I was in elementary school.  We’re all wired differently.

I think that it would be incredibly demotivating to read posts urging you to write faster, write to an audience, run ads, and promote when your only interest is in pleasing yourself with writing a story for your own satisfaction.

But I also wonder if some writers haven’t really completely thought through what they want.  If they truly want to put their work out there for a broad audience. Or, if they even want to publish their work at all. Maybe, after reading all the online commentary about the writing craft, reaching an audience, book cover design, and advertising, they just blindly start moving in that direction.

Of course, there’s no wrong answer.  No wrong direction to take.  But I do think it’s important to think about what you want.  When I saw this fairly comprehensive quiz on Colleen M. Story’s Writing and Wellness blog, I thought it was a great place to start. Not only may it help guide writers into thinking about motivation-related questions, but it can also help writers realize what does drive them.  Some of the listed motivations include achievement and recognition, creative fulfillment and transcendence, and connection and relationships.

Knowing what you want out of your writing means that you may not need to bury yourself in learning about crafting the best BookBub pitch or an amazing query letter.  It can help you stay focused on whatever is important to you about the writing craft.

As a writer, what motivates you to write (I think the answer is slightly different for everyone)?

The Importance of Knowing Your Motivation for Writing: Click To Tweet

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by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

I read an interesting article by writer Victoria Griffin called “Writing Gains are Made on Rep Days.”

Griffin explains rep days for weightlifters:

“For lifters, rep days mean loading light weights on the bar and repping it out until you’re entirely sick of whatever exercise you’re doing…For example, hip contact is important to a good snatch. I’ll spend days doing nothing but hip contact drills until I’m black and blue. It’s not fun, and it’s not glamorous. But guess what? Next time I do snatches, my form is better and I lift heavier weight.”

She then makes the writing analogy:

“For writerly folk, rep days may be big word count days. Or they may be those days when we just don’t want to do it. For whatever reason, we don’t feel like writing, but we sit down and do it anyway. Writing on those days strengthens our writing “muscles” so that on the days we do feel like writing, when the words are flowing, we’re able to write more and better than we would have otherwise.”

I liked what Griffin was saying.  I agree with her that there is a sort of ‘writing muscle’ that atrophies when we don’t work it out enough.  It’s always harder to jump back into a story after taking a long break…the characters aren’t as familiar to us, we have to get reacquainted with the story world, and it’s easier to make continuity errors.

I’ll take it a step farther and say that it gives a tremendous boost to our overall confidence as writers to write on those days when we have to push ourselves through it.  I know that most days out of the week, I’m not feeling inspired as I sit down to write.  As I go, I get more into my story and into the flow of writing.  I show up.  I’m not one of those who says writers have to write every single day, but it sure helps if you can write for most of them.

Writer Teresa Frohock put this well in her post “Writing When You’re Uninspired“:

“By forcing myself to write, even when I don’t feel like it, I build on the self-discipline that I will need to get me through those deadlines when I must write.” 

If we know we can tackle our project on the toughest days, it can give us the motivation to power through most days.  Also, having a string of successful days of working in a row can help us to build confidence in our ability to keep making progress on a story. Writer Karen Woodward’s post, “How to Write Everyday: Jerry Seinfeld and the Chain Method,” explains how we can gain motivation by marking off writing days on our calendar.

While I don’t feel like it’s necessary to write every day (I’ll miss a day several days out of the month, if not more), I do feel it can help to write most days–and that there’s a special benefit to pushing forward with our writing on some of the more challenging days, if possible.

What if you have gone a while without writing, but you want to pick it up again?  Read this helpful article by Daphne Gray-Grant, “How to Get Back Into Writing After a Break.”

Do you write on the tough days?  What keeps you motivated, as a writer?

'Rep Days' for Writers: Click To Tweet

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By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

By now in North Carolina, we usually have average daily temperatures in the lower 70s and sunshine more often than not.

It’s been a very strange winter and spring in the US.

We did have a spate of spring-like weather last week for a short time.  Since I’ve been feeling a little daylight deprived, I decided to go outside and do some gardening.  Actually, it was more like “yard work” since “gardening” to me denotes doing something light and airy with flowers.  This was work where I somehow ended up getting filthy and had to mop and vacuum my floor later because I’d tracked in. Continue reading