What Keeps You Going as a Writer?

[J_Chemist]

Weekly chronic stress and an oppressive pressure to meet the expectations of my readers. If I don't, then I'm a lazy piece of shit who needs to be taken out back.

 

[soomuu]

Coffee and hope I would say :)

 

[Temple]

And writing to market is, frankly, easy. So what practical reason is there to not just give up on one's own ideas and just exclusively serve others?

Your goal should be (well, this is my goal; it could be yours too) writing in a way to "trick" people into liking what you like. Writing to market is easy, as you said. Writing what you want that's not marketable is lonely, as you well know. Well... think of how to be marketable without changing. That's the ultimate challenge.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

Money.

 

[AliceShiki]

I have always loved creating stories, and like... Well, wouldn't it be nice to make a living from doing something I love? That's why I like writing.

Defeating my ADHD and sitting down and writing is another matter entirely though.

Sometimes I just write for Roleplays though, which is much easier and isn't hindered by my ADHD... In those cases, it's just because it's fun to share stories with others and create stuff together~

As for keeping motivated during my lowest points? Uhn... Psychologist? Psychiatrist? Anti-depressants?

If I'm at a really bad spot, I need help, so I go get help from professionals. I don't need to deal with my issues alone.

 

[HelloHound]

very genuinely, I've never found a story quite like mine and the words come to me in the night like visions from a mad god.
that, and spite. spites a wonderful motivator

 

[Premier]

Money

 

[SallySally]

You know, it's just astounding. I've got more unfinished manuscripts than I have pairs of socks. And I've been at this writing thing for years! I mean, My latest story? It's like a roller-coaster designed by a toddler - wild, confusing, and full of unexpected loops! And let's not even talk about my grammar! I'm convinced my high school English teacher is rolling in her grave every time I misuse a semicolon. What's the deal with those, anyway?

 

[MintiLime]

My dedication to the characters and the fact that if I don’t write, I have a tendency to feel less real. Like, the characters are real to me, and writing them into existence makes them real in a literal sense. I feel that I almost owe it to my characters, since daydreaming got me through some tough times (not that that’s healthy but hey). If what’s in my head isn’t real, I feel like a part of me isn’t real… if that makes sense

 

[Major2501]

Getting readers and comments even though they're few and far between, it makes me happy knowing someone has enjoyed what I've written. And also, I keep writing because I literally need to dump ideas out of my head, they can't stay in there I need the space for pin numbers and pub quiz answers and shit. ?

 

[Story_Marc]

K, thanks for the attempts all.

I don't feel most of these responses managed to address my actual concern (on why not give up on one's own passions and just write to market) -- if anything, a lot of stuff encourages chasing external validation -- but I did remember why I choose to follow my passions even if I fear everything I do will go unappreciated and is a futile effort.

 

[Representing_Tromba]

I am motivated to just share my story. I want other people to see it. I also use it as a form of therapy to get my feelings out of my head.

 

[Temple]

a lot of stuff encourages chasing external validation

Because you said you were lonely lol. So, I (and probably the others) thought that you wanted external validation. What advice were you looking for? To be able to go on even if zero people read your work? As of now, I do not visits my dashboards or reply to messages or read reviews of my story either here on SH or on RR. Effectively, it's as if I'm writing to no one but myself. But I reached this phase of "zen", not caring about numbers, because I was addicted to numbers before and managed to break away from it.
Soooo... my advice would be, sell out, get burnt out, then see if you still have passion to continue with what you wanted to write that's not marketable. If no more fire within you, then drop writing and find something else to do.

 

[kaisei]

K, thanks for the attempts all.

I don't feel most of these responses managed to address my actual concern (on why not give up on one's own passions and just write to market) -- if anything, a lot of stuff encourages chasing external validation -- but I did remember why I choose to follow my passions even if I fear everything I do will go unappreciated and is a futile effort.

This is mostly just a matter of perspective and objectives, because it depends on what you mean by external validation. Does validation mean landing your story in some kind of journal or magazine or does it mean having lots of fans? In the case of the latter, people say that writing to market is easy (I would argue it's actually more difficult now than any time in history), but precisely because the "market" (or whatever nebulous amorphous way you want to describe the general marketplace for produced writing) is so saturated, galvanizing a large fanbase is pretty difficult since reading is technically a zero sum game.

If your validation concerns the former, just getting published regardless of whether people actually end up reading your work, you can probably pay subscriptions to those aggregators that just give you places to submit and sort by the highest acceptance rate.

I actually think this naturally inspires a kind of existential dread, especially for most writers nowadays, because if writing for yourself was the only drive, then the solution would simply be to write in your diary and never publish. Why publish if the only person you're writing for is yourself? That being said, I do think that people should try their best to move away from modes of thinking that concerns trying to appease some difficult to define idea of the "literary market." Not only does it not really exist in the way that you think it does, it's also possible that the market, which is quite segmented, might have considerable overlap with the things that you like to write.

 

[Story_Marc]

Because you said you were lonely lol. So, I (and probably the others) thought that you wanted external validation. What advice were you looking for? To be able to go on even if zero people read your work? As of now, I do not visits my dashboards or reply to messages or read reviews of my story either here on SH or on RR. Effectively, it's as if I'm writing to no one but myself. But I reached this phase of "zen", not caring about numbers, because I was addicted to numbers before and managed to break away from it.
Soooo... my advice would be, sell out, get burnt out, then see if you still have passion to continue with what you wanted to write that's not marketable. If no more fire within you, then drop writing and find something else to do.

To quote the first part, the question I ended off on that went ignored:

"So what practical reason is there to not just give up on one's own ideas and just exclusively serve others?"

I gave the reason WHY I was considering throwing it away, but also made clear I wasn't there yet either and more just thinking about arguments against that side so I could quiet it. I was aiming to get back to normal work in such a Zen state.

So, things like "money" or "people giving praise" weren't practical reasons to NOT do it.

Regardless, as said, I have found my internal reason again. One person sparked me back to it and other things reminded me why I do what I do. I'm just not sharing my reason because of something psychological I heard about that I'm trying out of curiosity.

This is mostly just a matter of perspective and objectives, because it depends on what you mean by external validation. Does validation mean landing your story in some kind of journal or magazine or does it mean having lots of fans? In the case of the latter, people say that writing to market is easy (I would argue it's actually more difficult now than any time in history), but precisely because the "market" (or whatever nebulous amorphous way you want to describe the general marketplace for produced writing) is so saturated, galvanizing a large fanbase is pretty difficult since reading is technically a zero sum game.

If your validation concerns the former, just getting published regardless of whether people actually end up reading your work, you can probably pay subscriptions to those aggregators that just give you places to submit and sort by the highest acceptance rate.

I actually think this naturally inspires a kind of existential dread, especially for most writers nowadays, because if writing for yourself was the only drive, then the solution would simply be to write in your diary and never publish. Why publish if the only person you're writing for is yourself? That being said, I do think that people should try their best to move away from modes of thinking that concerns trying to appease some difficult to define idea of the "literary market." Not only does it not really exist in the way that you think it does, it's also possible that the market, which is quite segmented, might have considerable overlap with the things that you like to write.

And this is much closer to what I was thinking about. Particularly the existential dread I was feeling and what shifted me out of such thinking.

 

[AliceShiki]

"So what practical reason is there to not just give up on one's own ideas and just exclusively serve others?"

Spending less money on anti-depressants because you won't hate your job and will find meaning on what you do is a pretty practical reason! ^^)/

 

[Paul_Sawyer]

Nothing really, except for an eccentric idea that there are certain things that have to be said and I'm the one perfectly fit for saying them.

Also this:

The saying "fine i'll do it myself" describe very clearly why i became a writter.

 

[AlmondCrushPocky]

Improving as an author... is what I would say if I didn't get a straight dopamine rush watching the numbers rise up.

 

[laccoff_mawning]

My hatred for harem stories and the unoriginal generic trash I see.

(not on scribblehub. Talking about eastern webnovels/lightnovels)

 

[MajorKerina]

Sheer unadulterated panic