Today I want to talk about what makes a writer (me specifically) tick. How do you get writing done? How do you continue to do something that is undeniably difficult, day in, day out? I’ve been asking myself these questions a long time, and I think it boils down to two very intimately related, but subtly different things: inspiration and motivation. Inspiration are all the external things that bring you new motivation. New skills you’ve learned, new ideas you’ve had. Motivation on the other hand, is the raw energy that drives you to do something, be it writing, or anything else. Throughout my life I have always had a glut of inspiration, but also a big shortage of motivation. I struggle to do the things I love because sometimes (ok, a lot of the time) I’d rather just vegetate in my bed or on the couch. It’s been a big barrier for my writing as you can imagine. I have all these things I want to write about, so many books, movies, shows, and videogames to draw inspiration from, but none of the energy I want when it comes to turning all that into something real. In this post I want to talk about the core issue that causes the problem, my work-in-progress solutions, and how all this can relate to my writing. But first, a quick progress update of what I’ve accomplished over the weekend!

My focus was on the short story I’ve been working on, Demonitization. I don’t think I’ve given a synopsis for this one yet, so here goes. Let me know in the comments how you feel about it. This is the work in progress synopsis I’ll use for magazine submissions:

Demonitization is about young man who discovers that a demon is inhabiting his room. Like a true red-blooded American, he lets himself become convinced that the best way to deal with the demon is to monetize the problem and turn the situation on its head. His demonic problem becomes the solution to the capital equation, and suddenly he’s swimming in more cash than he’s ever known, buying up everything he’s ever dreamed of. But how sustainable is making a living off the monster in your room?

I’ve almost got the story finished, and I think I’ll be able to round it off today. Then comes editing! I’ll probably let the story lie for a week or two before coming back to edit with fresh eyes. This lets me read my own story in a mindset that’s a lot closer to a reader than the author. I need my ‘reader’ hat on while editing to make sure ‘writer’ Ben hasn’t messed anything up too badly. I picked up this tactic from the one and only Stephen King, from his book ‘On Writing’ which I highly recommend by the way.

But back to the topic at hand: inspiration, and how it fails to lead directly to long-term motivation. I find a lot of my inspiration comes from learning new skills by reading how-to books like the one I mentioned above, or by finding similar resources on the internet. Whenever I read books like ‘On Writing’ I get a hit of motivation because I want to try out the new techniques I learned like a kid with new toys on Christmas day. A few ideas will bum-rush my conscious brain and I’ll dump out like 5000 words in day. It feels awesome. But then the next day, I feel completely drained. No writing gets done. Maybe you yourself have encountered this very problem in something you want to learn or do consistently. After learning the new technique(s), I was greatly inspired, yes, and I was motivated for a day, yes, but does that motivation carry on like I wish it would? Absolutely not.

So the question is, why? Why can’t I get just as excited about writing the next day as I was the previous? What turns new techniques into something that I’m bored with? Well I’m sorry to say I can’t give a complete answer yet because I haven’t fully solved the issue myself. I can give a couple of guesses, or models of problem if you prefer something a little more scientific. I think these are contributing factors for sure, if not the core problem.

Model one is that I use up all my ideas too quick after getting them. The inspiration leads to ideas which motivate me to write, write, write until they’re all gone and there’s nothing left to motivate me to write new stuff. And I don’t just mean new stories or new worlds, but new directions to take in-progress work, new ways to spice up dialogue, new ways to characterize and describe, etc. There are two obvious solutions to this that I can see: either be constantly refreshing my pool of ideas by consuming more and more inspiration, or write slower. I don’t want to write slower, so I guess I’m just going to have to get more inspired. To that end, I’m going to do a book haul at some point this week, and my very loving and helpful mom is going to send me some of her books too. Love you mom! Something tells me this won’t complete solve the issue though, which brings me to model two.

Model two is that the problem has less to do with how much I have to write with, and more to do with maintaining a healthy habit and routine of writing. This way, even if I have nothing in my brain to work with when I sit down, I’ll still end up creating something because I have conditioned myself to create at the same time, in the same place, every day. How do you do that though? How do you force yourself to write when nothing comes to you? Well, I have two methods: external motivators, and internal motivators.

This blog is a good example of how I try to use my external motivators to get stuff done. I feel obligated to write the blog because I told you, dear reader, that I would put out a blog post every week day between 11AM and 1PM EST. These are the kind of motivator that get me in gear the best, but I feel they’re lacking. I wish I could write consistently without needing to have an external obligation, but instead an internal one.

My internal motivation includes something I already discussed, which is the inspiration I feel after learning something new. Obviously, this isn’t as reliable as I would hope. Other internal motivators are much more vague, boiling down to, ‘I want to be a writer’ and ‘I need to get something done so I don’t feel like I didn’t get anything done.’ These too, are pretty weak. I honestly haven’t found a better internal motivator yet, so that’s why this blog is so important to me right now. I don’t have all the answers yet, but maybe this will help me find them. Writing, in my opinion, is all about motivation. What makes a hero want to save people? What makes a villain want to hurt? The characters that come off the page do so because what they want, and how they get it, are clearly defined. I can do this decently enough with other characters, but without knowing my own motivations I think my writing will always be second best to what it could be otherwise. Part of this day job is to find that motivation and become the best writer I can be. I hope I can find it someday soon.

I won’t find out by combing through this blog post for any more errors though, so here goes another day in my Dangerous Day Job!

Thank you for reading,

Benjamin Hawley