Motivation

I typically take a peek at the upcoming topic the weekend before. I like to try and stay ahead, but also to allow my thoughts to begin collecting, thus making it easier to write the post. In doing so, the theme of the post reveals itself, sentences begin to form and each paragraph tends to begin lining up, jockeying for position.

This week’s topic was easy and, although I am only beginning to write it, I daresay that it will write itself. (Editor’s note: it did.)

For those of you who have come to know me, I hope you will not find this post to be repetitive. I have spoken about some of this before. For those of you who don’t know me very well, allow me to set it up.

I started writing late in life. That’s not exactly true. What I mean is I started writing when I was a kid, of course. However, it wasn’t until I had approached my forties that I began attempting to resurrect the novel writing that I had been doing before life, family and career began pushing it to the back-burner, as they say. I completed my novel about vampires unleashed in my hometown and then was blessed to find a publisher willing to climb out on a limb with me. Although it took essentially twenty years to write the first novel, I managed to write the first two drafts of the sequel in a mere eight months.

Since then, it has been a blur. A guest post in these hallowed pages soon became an invite to join as a regular. A review in a local magazine soon got me a job writing for another magazine. Add to this the posting I need to do for my own blog, as well as the help I give to another, and suddenly I’m juggling deadlines. Then, for everything that you are doing, you need to keep the gears of the PR machine greased. I do all of that on top of the eleven hours that I do at my day-job. Notice I have yet to say anything about my family or house and yard work.

So, why do I do it? Why do any of us do it? It’s two reasons, isn’t it?
We write because we have it in us. We were born with a talent to put words together in such a way that it compels others to want to read more. We tell stories with words, and not just any words, but grand ones. I don’t think I’m the only one who feels this way, am I? I would love to hear how others feel about it.

Another reason that we write is the potential. Stephen King used to write stories that no one but his immediate circle read. I heard that John Grisham gave his first novel away. That would have been A Time to Kill. Have you read it? It might be his best; certainly one of them. How about J.K. Rowling? Or Stephanie Meyer? Enter any author that you want onto this list. Heck, you can even add the names of newspaper columnists, play-writes, screenwriters and songwriters to that list of people who are now being paid to do what they do. Each and every one of them came from a place where no one was reading them. Who says that you and I are not next to that list?

Having (written) said all of this, one might say that the answer is simple, but it isn’t. I’m approaching forty-two years old now. Before you begin to tell me that I’m not old or anything, and that I have plenty of time yet to make a second career out of writing (and I love you for it, by the way), I have a couple of other numbers for you: 21, 17 and 13. This June will be my 21st wedding anniversary. I married my wife, not my laptop and iPhone. She has gotten scant attention from me these past few years while I attempt to juggle a schedule that is far too demanding. Next is how old my firstborn will be this coming July. He’s driving now and is as accomplished as hell. He performs in plays, sings honor choir and plays in honor band. He was one of only sixteen to make the California All-State Jazz Choir. He’s starting to get a ton of mail from colleges far and wide. The last number is the age of my youngest son. He’s the sports kid. He’s my all-star in baseball and is now doing track, too. If I keep up this pace for another five years, I could potentially look up to find that both of them are grown men.

I’m going to take a hard look at this year and see what I can glean from it. I love to write and have tons more stories that I would like to see in print, even if I’m the only one reading them. People who have read my novel so far come up to me and tell me that they liked it. Just getting more people to hear of the novel is the difficult part, not to mention getting them to buy.

Unfortunately, I fear that I am going to have to schedule down soon. This year the second novel will see publication, but when am I going to find the time to begin writing the third one? As it is now, the only writing I’m doing is for PR – not fiction at all.

What keeps you guys motivated? I really want to know. Perhaps reading your comments will help me more clearly decide what I want to do. Or need to do.

Oh, and one more thing. You’ll notice that I didn’t post any photos this time. I just felt that the words should provide the pictures today.

It’s what we do. Right?

MOTIVATION from the DARK SIDE

Warning: This weeks topic – what motivates me – was a bitter, dark chapter of self discovery.

  

Upon preparing for the post, it was revealed that for my whole life, I confused and mixed personal motivation and with illustrious inspiration, and made a delightful cocktail of my own devious imagination.

After I was ever so thoughtfully pointed into the boring, yet proper direction by my beloved friend Thom (whose impressive title of ‘Mr. Know-it-all’ far exceeds that of Bullwinkle J. Moose), I started on the day long journey of discovering if I, indeed, had this elusive motivation gene everyone was clamoring about.

And if I did, what the hell was it.

What I found out both astounded my intelligence yet disgruntled my very soul.

The official definition of motivation is ‘eagerness and willingness to do something without needing to be told or forced to do.’

Motivation is complex since human nature is complex. What kicks you in the arse and gets you going might not thrill me in the slightest and vise-versa.

Yet for me to understand what motivates me to act in certain ways enables me to work peaceably with my muse. It’s also a way for me to give fair warning to those who are intimate in my life; by understanding what motivates me, they are less likely to get in my way and become road kill.

Motivation can be categorized according to whether it is a basic, instinctive drive, common to all people and animals. This type of motivation involves satisfying the needs of the physical body including hunger, thirst, shelter/safety, sexual activity and so on.

Learned motivation (or external motivation) is based on a reward system (think potty training or to cease smoking) and seems to satisfy the desires of the mind and the spirit. It includes achievement of goals, whether they be in terms of gaining knowledge, power, self-development or a loving relationship.  

So, with all this hefty knowledge in hand – did I find out what motivates me?

Ummm, yes. But it’s not pretty.

My sexual drive motivates me to be as passionate with my stories as I am to my lovers in bed. It is my WILL to pleasure all who read.

• Greed
• Anger
• Hunger
• Fear
• Power
• Sexual Drive

Interesting. Scary. Not what I envisioned as a Gay Romantic Suspense writer, and definitely not what I would consider a healthy way of thinking.

Yet, after pondering on this startling self-examination result, some key factors have come into place. I am a melancholy person. I’m in my element during stormy weather. Pain and death and loss have built me into the creature I am today. I tend to gravitate to the dark side of life. I love villains more than heroes and even my favorite heroes are considered anti-heroes.

Should that which motivates me be any different than that which I love?

GREED – as a writer, I don’t lust after money or fame and have a distain for authors who do. My greed stems from the fact I WANT to write. I am greedy with my time, my words, my talent. My greed motivates me to push past fluff and utter nonsense other writers seem caught up in. It if doesn’t involve around my world of writing, I don’t want it. If it does – it WILL be mine.

ANGER – my anger fuels me, pushes me ahead, keeps me from drowning in a sea of pauper pity. I see the injustice in my life, I see how the sins of others have inflicted me and I seethe with a righteous fire. My anger motivates me to prove myself worthy and to cast the peons who doubted my talent into the fiery path of my pen. Vengeance, even in the form of a story, WILL be mine.

HUNGER – the gnawing in my gut drives me to excess. I feast upon words, upon books, ideas, concepts, anything to fill the empty void within. I regurgitate these things, digest them and absorb them into my body. My hunger motivates me to keep on, a driving force to seek out new experiences, new knowledge, and new ideas to write about, thus propelling me even further into my craft. I WILL follow my craving to write.

FEAR – is the root of my anger. I fear for my sanity. I fear to be alone in an eternity where there is no stories, no books, no words and in such an arena, my imagination would tear at itself like a starving cannibal. I fear the ever present ring of laughter from my past peers, those who told me I would never amount to anything. Surly, they can’t be right, can they? My fear motivates me to run, not as a coward, but to leave those hurtful taunts that chase me behind. I will show them. I WILL succeed.

POWER – they say the pen is mightier than the sword. I believe it, for I have fought many bloody battles with my words. Some I won, some I lost, some are pending. The ink runs in my veins, flows down onto the paper and breathes life into ALL my campaigns. With my words, I can create life, I can cast death. I rain blessings and curses with a stroke across the keyboard. My characters and my world are at my mere whims. I am a GOD and nobody can hurt me. My power motivates me to go beyond what I thought was possible. My stories WILL bow to me and obey.

SEXUAL DRIVE – some days, my need to write, to create, equals or surpasses my sexual desire. My creative juices teams with squiggling life creating properties. The hormones that course through my body scream for release in the form of words on paper, scene after scene, character within the plot and the orgasmic blow of the black moment. My sexual drive motivates me to be as passionate with my stories as I am to my lovers in bed. It is my WILL to pleasure all who read.

So, coming up to resurface from my frightening sub-conscious, I have decided I am totally mental. However, with that said, no matter how disturbing, how insane my motivations are to others, they work well with me. The sense of motivational control I have over my world is almost heady, and within my spirit house bubbles a thigh clenching “Mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha…..”

Yeah. My motivations. They work for me.

Welcome home to the dark side…

Motivation from the Dark

Sorry this post is a little late. It was hard for me to write as you will see as you read this post. This weeks topic is about motivation. As a warning, this post is going to get really dark for a moment, which might seem out of character for me as I usually try to stay positive in my posts, but it'll get better toward the end I promise.


So what motivates me to keep writing and not give up? Well, to answer that I have to take you back a few years to a sixteen year old girl trapped by alcohol and drug addiction. I couldn't function without a few vicodins or oxycodones to start the day, a few drinks after school (okay a lot of drinks) and more pills at night. The fact that I didn't stop my heart with this combination of chemicals is beyond me.

I should have died.

I wanted to die.


Yes, it's true. I wanted to die more than anything. I would wake up extremely mad I woke up at all. I tried to years to find the right concoction of drugs that would let me just slip away in my sleep. But I never found it.

I guess maybe I have a purpose to fulfill in this life. Perhaps I am destined for something. Who knows. All I know is that for about ten years, my soul was in total agony because of what I was doing to myself and the fact that I seemed immortal!

I don't want to scare you too much with the horror stories of those ten years. But let me just say I can tell you each moment where rightfully and scientifically I should have died. Besides the lethal drugs I was pumping steadily into my system, there was the fact I ran into traffic - on purpose. I purposefully walked into dangerous situations and fights hoping I would come out the loser (and in my mind, really, the winner...) I have more scars than I can count - one of which from a somewhat serious stab wound to my chest. The rest from doing things like, rock climbing with no safety equipment.

Obviously this story has a happy ending. I didn't die and I don't want to die anymore. I got into a recovery program, AA, and slowly began to put back the pieces of my life. It's been four and a half years since my last drink - four and half years since I last wanted to die.

So what motivates me to keep going and not quit? The fact that every day I have now is a miracle. Sometimes I feel I didn't earn this time because of the person I once was. I hurt people during those ten years I suffered - I hurt a lot of people. Each day is a blessing that I can't take for granted. I wasted ten years of my life because of my own selfishness and pain and I don't intend to waste another moment. I keep improving and learning and moving forward in a positive way.

I should have died long before I reached the age of 20. The first birthday I had after I sobered up I cried for most of the day. I never thought I would see the age of 23.

Like I said. I must have a destiny to fulfill. I have been blessed with friends who truly love and care about me, a husband who has stuck by my side for the last four and a half years, a beautiful son who adores me.

If I was to impart any knowledge to the readers out there it would be this. Don't waste your life. If you have dreams or things you want to do -- go do them NOW. Life is way too short to wait for "someday." And it's way too short to quit when things get tough.

I'll close with one of my favorite quotes:

"Love like you've never been hurt,

Dance like no one is watching,

Sing like no one is listening,

Work like you don't need money,

and Live like there's no tomorrow."

You Are Your Own Motivation

"What motivates you to keep writing and not give up?"

That's a very good question, considering I haven't written anything all month. Have I given up? Pffft. No. I'm in this too deep, past the point of no return.

Do I want to give up? Nah.

Have I thought about giving up? Of course I have. Life would be easier if I didn't write. After all, I have a day job. I could do what most American's do after work; watch TV, drink a cold one, hang out with friends.

Instead, I do what only writers with a day job do; I go straight to my computer and work. I don't watch TV because it distracts me from writing and promoting. I don't drink because I get buzzed easily and I don't want to see the result of drunken writing. Scary thought. Seriously. As for hanging out with friends ... What friends?? Oh, sure, I talk to Ana and Charlene on Skype and I go out with my boyfriend once in a while. But that about sums up my social life. I'm too busy trying to be an author to have a social life, so my social life consist of "friends" and "followers" online. Don't get me wrong, I love my social networking buddies.

But I wasn't always a hermit crab. I wasn't always a writer. I'm only twenty-five, I still remember my high school and college years. My pre-writing years. I don't have kids, I'm not married. It would be very simple to quit and go back to "normal".

So why don't I?

Honestly, I don't want to. I have a stubborn, determined passion to become an author. Well, scratch that. I'm already under contract with MuseItUp Publishing Inc. So, I AM an author. :)

Why would I quit now? I'm just getting started.

As far as what motivates me, the only answer I have for you is Me, Myself, and I. There's nothing, NOTHING easy about being an author. You might think plotting and writing the first draft is hard - and it is! But just wait until you start editing. You'll think "Nothing can be harder than this s**t." But of course, you wouldn't write and edit an entire manuscript without planning to publish it. HA. Guess what? Getting an agent or editor contract is HARD WORK. Lets say you get that far... have you tried self-promotion yet? That's where I am now. Hmm? Why are you looking at me funny? Oh, they didn't tell you you have to promote yourself? Yup. Unless you can afford to hire a PR. Which most of us can't.

Seriously. There is nothing and no one out there that's going to push you to do this. ANYTHING would be easier than writing. Especially since you don't get paid until you start selling books. Oh, and no one gets into this biz expecting to become rich. Sure, we all hope to be an overnight success like Stephenie Meyer. But we all know in the back of our heads that Meyer is the very definition of "exception". More like "jack pot lottery winner" if you ask me.

After all the blood, sweat, and tears (yes, I've actually done all three. Blood? Paper cut. Nasty things...) you may or may not sell a book. But whether you do or not, once you come full circle, you realize you're not at some higher place on the proverbial chart. No, you're back at the beginning, staring at the blinking courser on a blank Word Document, trying to puzzle out your next manuscript. And the whole process starts over again. HA.

Oh, not happy with that answer? Want to know what REALLY motivates little old me? It's the dream of one day seeing a novel I've written in print on the shelf of a Barns & Noble. Hopefully they won't also go bankrupt before I get that far. That, and a level of stubbornness only a female Taurus can achieve. Yup, that's really, really it. Just a stubborn dream.