what motivates us?

[hopewrites]

The short answer is memories, friends, and a love of self. or maybe just love.
But the short answer doesn't do justice to the real answer.

Being an introvert the world inside my head/ heart is my real home, and the place i write from. it is my refuge in the storms of life, my garden of tranquility, a place of meditation, a place of creation, an ever evolving world where all my dreams and fears are born and die. Having dyslexia makes comunication from the world within to the world without difficult. Hex said "I write because it's what I do, I don't know why more people don't" and for me telling stories has always been this way. It is the bridge from my world to someone elses. This is where the 'love of self' part of the answer comes in, I love my world, therefor, I write about it.
But I didn't start writing until very recently, and it was playing Dungeons and Dragons and other Roll Playing/ Story Telling games that taught my friends what a rich imagination I had to draw from and those friends then encouraged me to develop my talent for story telling, by letting go of my fear of miss-spelling and my dread of never feeling confidant about my grammar. It was my friends who said to me "it doesn't matter if the grammar kills us, it doesn't matter if we have to have you in a voice chat to ask what the heck you were trying to spell, write it out!! Tell us your stories! You are doing a disservice to the world by hiding in your head like this!" Thus by constant coaxing did my world blossom before their eyes, by constant correction and patient assistance my spelling and grammar improves.
I have left behind the friends who first encouraged my efforts, the roll players who basked in the detail rich worlds I painted with purple prose about them. The characters whom I guided through the worlds of others, and who, in return, guided my feet to new experiences and new thoughts. But their memories remain.


I love the line from the movie Martian Child, at the beginning where John Cusack's character is being interviewed, where he said something to the effect of "I could have paid thousands of dollars to spend years in therapy. But I chose to be a writer instead and now people pay me to be crazy."

All I know is that since I started writing it has been easier for the people in my life who love me to get to know me better. It has been easier for me to communicate to them the thoughts and feelings and ideas that make up who I am. And that is all the motivation I will ever need.

 

[David Evil Overlord]

The Muse is a Harsh Mistress. I must do what she says. It's kind of like being married.

 

[Toby Frost]

I don't really have much to say on this. I enjoy writing and would be bored without it. It's also the thing I do best, so I feel that I really ought to be doing it. And that's about it really.

 

[juelz4sure]

there are a lot of things that motivated me to start writting my book, for one i started writting poetry and have had a dryspell for years so i figured maybe a book, that and the fact i work a crappy job and it makes me feel like i might be accomplishing something. also i want to prove to myself others and the characters that i can do it. failure is easy to come by, success that is a different story entirely.
juelz

 

[TheDustyZebra]

I write because I have ideas. It's that or stand-up comedy, and I hate crowds.

David, my brother once said something very much like that, about being born too early. He's not a writer, he's a rocket scientist -- he's spent his life working on things that go into space, and things that make things go into space, and I believe he finds it very sad that he doesn't get to go with them.

 

[James Coote]

I write to communicate

Or sometimes I write just for practice. I was hoping to write something more profound here, but it just isn't happening right now

 

[Hex]

Hex said "I write because it's what I do, I don't know why more people don't"

I wish I had said that (and it's true), but I think those are Mouse words, not mine.

 

[Mouse]

I write, therefore I am. Indeed. Twas I.

 

[The Judge]

Gerald Finzi said this, which might be of interest:

... some curious force compels us to preserve and project into the future the essence of our individuality, and, in doing so, to project something of our age and civilization. The artist is like the coral insect, building his reef out of the transitory world around him and making a solid structure to last long after his own fragile and uncertain life...

... There is no need here to go into the labyrinths of aesthetics and to discuss whether art is based on the need for communication or the need for organised expression. For me, at any rate, the essence of art is order, completion and fulfillment. Something is created out of nothing, order out of chaos; and as we succeed in shaping our intractable material into coherence and form, a relief comes to mind (akin to the relief experienced at the remembrance of some forgotten thing) as a new accretion is added to that projection of oneself which, in metaphor, has been called ‘Absalom’s place’ or a coral reef or a ‘ceder or shrubbe’.

The full piece is here http://www.geraldfinzi.org/index9393.html?page=about/absalomsplace.html

 

[HareBrain]

We are all creating shrubberies. The Knights Who Say Ni were clearly patrons of the arts.

 

[David B]

David, my brother once said something very much like that, about being born too early. He's not a writer, he's a rocket scientist -- he's spent his life working on things that go into space, and things that make things go into space, and I believe he finds it very sad that he doesn't get to go with them.

Good for your brother. He's taking a more constructive course.

Hopefully, we will both get into orbit with space tourism even if the stars remain beyond us.

 

[chrispenycate]

Hmm, good question. I'm not really a creative at all, I'm a supportive. In music I record, or amplify, or just listen – in literature I read, and see errors. And when I'd been on the Chrons for a while I tentatively asked if, despite not being a writer, I could still nit-pick in critiques. This got a generally positive response (I won't name any names; they're probably regretting it now) so I started red-penning the straightforward, simple things, like grammar and punctuation, leaving the complex matters of style to those more competent.

But it started feeling a bit unfair; here I was, denigrating people's heat-felt attempts at creation, while they had no opportunity to hit back. Furthermore, I had a distinct impression that nobody understood a word I said (this impression stays with me; I do not consider myself a great communicator). So I wrote a couple of examples of what I was suggesting, expecting them to be ripped to shreds by those I had offended, and lo; some readers actually claimed to like them, and pushed me to extend, enlarge, enstorify.

Approval is a heady brew; my knight/dragon cookbook has entirely changed direction, and weighs in at over 200,000 words now, the generation ship looks good for the launch, I've put a couple of very short shorts into Mythaxis and even received money for a semi-factual piece for the States…

But the truth is, I'm a fraud. Not really a writer at all, an aspiring proofreader. I'm just good at concealing it.

 

[Interference]

Approval is a heady brew....

....and is surely the motivation behind all of our actions, interactions and inactions. We are encouraged by smiles, endorsed by applause and the more we get, the more we entertain dreams of universal approval.

But it has to start somewhere and the occasional "well done" can inspire us to progress.

 

[Bowler1]

I write because I have the urge to write, painters paint, same for music and so on, except I just write, I can't paint or do music!

Also I have a vivid imagination, which helps I think. Writing is an outlet for what runs around in my head, it has to go somewhere.

TV can be boring sometimes, this helps me anyway.

In Irish there is a word 'Shanakee', it means story teller. It was used to describe traveling story tellers that were given a bed, food etc from local lords, long, long ago, well before the English arrived......

I hope that some day, the word 'Shanakee' could be used to describe me.

Story telling has always been around, it is what some of us just do, if it ever pays for my bed and food, well and good.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Writing is an outlet for what runs around in my head, it has to go somewhere.

I feel this all the time as well, especially when so much of what we do day-in, day-out is repetitive and a little dull. My mind asks questions, hypothesises and conjectures all the time. It needs an outlet!



I feel creative ideas are like a huge cloud of static electricity building all the time in our heads.

Creative writing is the process of earthing this static electricity and generating a current.

And the stories and tales we etch into paper and harddrive with this current*, which we hopefully wield with ever greater skill, help to amuse, comfort, engross and perhaps also generate new static in other peoples heads.



*mmm, perhaps have taken this electricity metaphor a bit too far. Shocking.

 

[Mouse]

I feel this all the time as well, especially when so much of what we do day-in, day-out is repetitive and a little dull. My mind asks questions, hypothesises and conjectures all the time. It needs an outlet!

This is why I don't understand why more people don't write. I mean, what goes on in a non-writer's head? What do they think about? I can't even imagine not writing.

 

[Hex]

This is why I don't understand why more people don't write. I mean, what goes on in a non-writer's head? What do they think about? I can't even imagine not writing.

I used to play computer games, watch TV, go out and talk to people. I drank wine quite often and went to parties and saw my friends. I even vaguely recall spending time with my husband (or someone, anyway, I forget) -- all the stuff I don't do any more because I write (and have two small children, but I'm sure it's the writing really).

 

[Mouse]

That's what you did, not what you thought about.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Hmm, good question. I'm not really a creative at all, I'm a supportive. In music I record, or amplify, or just listen – in literature I read, and see errors.
...

But the truth is, I'm a fraud. Not really a writer at all, an aspiring proofreader. I'm just good at concealing it.

I'm much like that, myself, chrispy! I've been an aspiring proofreader all my life. Forget the silver spoon, I was born with a red pencil in my hand. My job now give me a chance to exercise a bit of that power, however unofficially, and that's a good thing.

On the other hand, I have always like to write, too. This place has been a godsend for my writing, because there's always a deadline and a theme for inspiration, and it keeps me going. If I want a career as a writer, all I need to do is hire someone to provide themes and deadlines!

 

[Hex]

That's what you did, not what you thought about.

I didn't have time to think...

Plus, I thought about related stuff -- you know... politics, stuff that had happened to my friends, Buffy etc.

Slightly more seriously -- for me the process of writing generates ideas. They're not in my head needing an outlet. Sadly.