How the fuck is everyone? I’m finally back in a writing groove. I’m only writing for an hour or so every day, but it’s just keeping the thread going that I find so helpful. It’s when I skip a few days or more that makes it so difficult to “get back in.” Kind of like working out. Exactly like working out. Only I hate it when people say that writing is a muscle or that you have to develop your writing muscle, but I’ll cave and say I think that’s probably true. On the other hand, I think my main motivation for writing is that I’m really unhappy/agitated if I’m not writing, I’m deeply compulsive, and it’s how I figure out who I am.
What motivates you to write?
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Betsy Lerner 
I’m writing a memoir called MAKE ME A (F**KING) MIRACLE. I sure as shit didn’t want to write this memoir, but I know I’m being called to do so.
From a total spiritual and psychic skeptic, I’ve been drawn into an awakening. I resisted. Trust me, I resisted for a 20 to 30 years. But I know that I’m CALLED.
The whole damn thing has been unexpected.
Jody (Josephine Carr)
Words. The way they sound, look on the page. Fit into a sentence. The way the sentence arrows you to the next one. Crafting. Sculpting.
That addresses the process. But what motivates me as a nonfiction writer is telling other peoples’ stories. I get lost in their woods– not mine – total absorption. And screw the time, the world, the news, dinner, getting dressed. (Ok I brush my teeth.) Writing is an affliction, but a necessary one.
So, I just finished my narrative nonfiction book. It took many years. Working title: LIVING TO DIE. Now I’m starting to navigate the publishing world. Learning big time. And thank you, Betsy, for your trade secrets in the podcast.
Diane Melton
That greeting made me snort laugh. So glad I wasn’t eating anything with hot sauce. 😏I’m such a creature of habit. For instance, I’ve cleaned every Thursday since I can remember. The old-fashioned kind of house cleaning, down to stripping beds, scrubbing bathrooms, etc. etc. Even when I was really sick, I cleaned.
So for writing, this means I get totally discombobulated when I’m not sitting at my desk – whether I write five words or five hundred. The longest I’ve ever gone was last summer and it was an unintended hiatus that lasted months. On Aug 5th I went and picked up these two Tasmanian Devils (the dynamic duo of Daphne and Chloe, i.e. Yorkie pups, nine weeks old) and I sincerely didn’t have the brain power or the energy to write.
The training, and watching over them consumed all of my time. There were moments when I was standing outside watching out for hawks overhead, while also trying to keep an eye on them, and praying neither escaped the fence (again!) that I wondered WHEN I’d get back to it. As I type this, both are asleep in my office. They’ve settled in – and I’m almost 30K into a new project and feeling very motivated. 🙌🏻
My motive for writing is much the same. Never quite understood it until I read an interview with Fran Lebowitz, who said, “All the time I’m not writing I feel like a criminal. It’s horrible to feel felonious every second of the day. It’s much more relaxing actually to work.”
“What motivates you to write?”
Fear. Fear of being alone, cast out, forgotten, unloved; fear of never having mattered; fear of death.
I wish there were more to it than that, something noble, and I’ve often tried to believe or pretend there was, but what it comes down to is fear.
John C. Krieg
I agree. It’s fear of failure more than anything else. I want to truly believe it myself when I tell someone, “I’m a writer.”
And I believe that a writer writes or might as well call themselves a former writer.
Hey guys, it’s me Carolynnwith2Ns.
I retired my column about a year ago and haven’t written in many months. Too old, too tired, too disappointed. Unfulfilled effort sucks.
THEN… I realized…Did Grandma Moses think her paintings would sell? Probably not but she sure as shit loved painting them.
NOW… I am back to working on my novel. (The favorite of my three).
IT’S ABOUT THE PROCESS NOT THE PRODUCT.
And I am loving it.
Well, what motivates you to take that pebble out of your shoe? Scratch that itch on your shoulder blade that you can’t quite reach? Eat that late night brownie that’s just sitting there, waiting to get eaten? You gotta do what you gotta do.
Hm … I pressed “Like” but nothing happened as far as I can see. So: I liked the post.