I have always written since I was a child. When I was 13 I had 2 200 sheet notebooks that I filled with words. Before that I used to enjoy writing class in english. I am still writing to this day and want to publish them on my substack. What made me start is simple passion. What motivates me is because it helps me release tension and organize my thoughts. I just hate that I make punctuation mistakes. But as someone whose second language is english, I am easy on myself.
I took a writing class and wrote a story that I intended as a short story but everyone told me it had too much content and should be a novel. Shortly after, I drafted a novel of about 30,000 words.
Soon after, I started getting into writing fan fiction because a show I watched had some loose ends I wanted to tie up. As time went on, I got more and more ideas for fan fiction and still write fan fiction now.
After many years of practice writing fan fiction, I picked up my novel draft again and realized I can do better with it. Now it’s over 65, 000 words and I’m still working on it but almost there
What motivates me? Thinking about how good my stories will be when I finish them. And also rewarding myself with tv shows and movies. And also, I’ve been having someone read my novel a few chapters at a time and that motivates me to get the next chapter ready for her
External deadlines really help with motivation. See if you can find a hobby group or writing-related Discord or something like that, something where people create goals for everyone to work toward and keep each other accountable. Like, we’re all sharing a short story by August 17th, or we’re all going to bring something new we’ve written to our next meeting.
As for starting, I feel like I had a ton of different starts as a kid. There were school projects, things I tried with friends, and lots of instances of me trying to make my own versions of things I liked, some of which were written artifacts. I guess I always started with whatever I wanted to write, whether that was a small project or a small part of a large one.
I think you shouldn’t worry about whether your writing project is the right thing to start with. Someone might tell you to start with flash fiction instead of a novel, but that’s no good if you don’t enjoy flash fiction, and flash fiction has its own challenges that might pose more difficulty than writing a scene of a novel. It’s OK if your writing is crap (it probably will be for a long time). It’s OK if it takes forever to get words out. It’s OK if you get stuck. Just write something.
I write music, but I feel like a lot of the creative principles are the same…
First, keep your creative muscle in shape by exercising it daily. Write something. Even if it’s garbage. Keep a little library of ideas for future projects. Little efforts each day add up over time.
Second, don’t try to be creative in a vacuum. Read books, poems, short stories, from just about anyone. Let their style and their approach to language kickstart your own ideas.
I followed a language course and had to hand in a text every week. Everyone else would write matter of fact stuff while I would verge wildly off topic with stories. The teacher told me she enjoyed them and that I should continue after the course is finished, so I write short stories now.
I started in school and was lucky enough to have teachers who encouraged me to keep writing. The motivation has always been to entertain; to make people laugh with short stories, comics, scripts, whatever. That carried through to my work at university, and I spent a lot of my free time making goofy adventure games and entering game jams.
These days I still have the same core motivation of wanting to entertain, but I guess with the deeper idea of wanting to positively impact the world by giving people memorable experiences. But as any writer will tell you, those noble aspirations will only carry you so far. On the days where I’m less inspired, the motivation is getting paid ;)
What started me: Self expression.
What keeps me going: Even more self expression in a world drowning in slop. If I have an idea, I bring it to paper in the way I want, with the words I like, in a manner that I see fit. It is a craft that fills me with pride!
I started to escape reality.
Now that ai scrapes everything I’m not motivated to create at all.
