Motivation

The other night as I was drifting off to sleep, I had brilliant words to share about motivation. They were poignant and profound, as I usually am inside my own head before the words make the journey from my brain into my fingers. Somehow, something is often lost in translation.

None the less, I want to speak about motivation. What motivates you to write? Do you have to have the sunrise on a clear morning? Do you require isolation and silence? Do the stars have to align just so, inspiring you with need and the right storyline?

Motivation needs to be found in every aspect of daily life, as well as with the perfect scenerios to suit us. I am motivated by the rain falling on my rooftop (one of my perfect scenerios), by a touching commercial, a character on a television show, by looking into my newborn son's sleeping face.

As writers, we need to find the depth, the emotion, the significance of even the mundane. Even as I'm a new mother, striving to find the time to shower and do the laundry, how does that relate to the characters I've created or those I've yet to create? Perhaps my character is unwed, but wants that child, that mundacity. (Is that a word?) Maybe instead, a single father is trying to cope with these boring and exhausting chores when he longs to be wild and free.

My characters thoughts and emotions, just as my own, motivate me to write. To share something that might change one person's mind about one little thing in life. This is why we write. To change us, to change others, to change the world. If that's not motivating, I don't know what is.