Maximizing Time for Writing - Part 2: Creating and sustaining motivation

Broad-eyed notes toward thinking about the short steps and modes of thinking that make up a long path into the arts

Continued from Part 1 here

Creating and sustaining motivation

No matter who you are or where you’re at, writing is hard. In fact, it’s supposed to be; otherwise, there wouldn’t be much value in passing language forward over time. This isn’t to say, of course, that what’s temporal has no value; rather, it’s that it takes time upon time to distinguish what holds water, whether it appears to be able to or not. Most, if not all, of the great works of literature contains an ineffable quality that otherwise went overlooked during its time, and so it should be no surprise that many fall prey to the difficulty of sustaining belief in themselves in the meantime—particular when it comes to anybody seeing what you’re doing beyond the reach of your desk.

It’s easy to point out that good work is its own reward, and that recognition can’t be forced. One feature of the slowness of literature in general is that every mirage undermines itself, as eventually whatever headwinds might have made a short term winner out of a sham will in the long run lose all context, and therefore relevance. This can also be hard to remember when in looking back on decades of literature, we no longer see the vast quantities of work that failed to sustain its demand. Putting yourself in the ballpark of wanting to make work that speaks for itself over time, at least by my model, can be enough to get you to your desk long enough to make something substantial enough to send out for others to read, but what happens when the rejections come—as they do for literally everyone? What makes someone want to keep going when all the world seems to keep saying is they have no place here in the present?