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How I motivate myself to write

blog.pragmaticengineer.com

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Re: How I motivate myself to write

#21

Post by nonbirithm »

I liked this article as a collection of tips for effective writing, but did not find much about the topic of motivation within it. The author appears to be internally driven to write from the outset, and the advice given assumes that you also have the volition to write yourself and want to improve.

Is lack of interest a solvable problem? This is a question I continually revisit. In one of the comment threads for the last "how to write" article that was submitted recently, there was an opinion that it is not. There is nothing you can do to motivate someone who is fundamentally a non-writer to be a writer. The interest will never be there, no matter what the person chooses to say or think on the contrary.

Does the concept of interest have some kind of divide between "mental" (the subjects your brain is capable of focusing on at a biological level) and "volitional" (the things you say you want to focus on)? Certain mental conditions include symptoms like "specific interests" as diagnostic criteria, which makes me believe that biology plays a part in motivation in addition to routine.

Ideas such as those have made me question many other things. Assuming that lack of motivation is not solvable, is it justifiable to have interest in nothing (productive/creative/cultural) in particular, yet still be dissatisfied with the ways you spend your time?

There is some kind of cognitive dissonance that arises when I think that "writing would be nice," when attempting to write is an activity that I lose interest in within days of actively returning to it, but the original thought of "writing would be nice" never goes away.

Re: How I motivate myself to write

#22

Post by Swizec »

nonbirithm wrote: post #21

I liked this article as a collection of tips for effective writing, but did not find much about the topic of motivation within it. The author appears to be internally driven to write from the outset, and the advice given assumes that you also have the volition to write yourself and want to improve. Is lack of interest a solvable problem? This is a question I continually revisit. In one of the comment threads for the…

The best writing advice I ever heard was “Don’t write unless you can’t not write”

For 99% of writers there is never going to be any other reward than the writing itself. If the writing itself isn’t rewarding to you, you will never stay with it long enough to get to a level where you may have a chance at joining the 1% who get external rewards for it.

Re: How I motivate myself to write

#23

Post by ghaff »

nonbirithm wrote: post #21

I liked this article as a collection of tips for effective writing, but did not find much about the topic of motivation within it. The author appears to be internally driven to write from the outset, and the advice given assumes that you also have the volition to write yourself and want to improve. Is lack of interest a solvable problem? This is a question I continually revisit. In one of the comment threads for the…

>Is lack of interest a solvable problem? This is a question I continually revisit.

I guess if you really don't like writing and put it off at every opportunity, it's reasonable to ask whether--assuming it's not your primary job--this is something you really need to do, at least on a regular basis.

(And others really try but in spite of editors putting a lot of work into it, they just don't get better.) I've had a couple jobs that involved a lot of writing for the past 20 years and writing has been good for me. But I wouldn't really advise a developer or other engineer to start writing as a path to riches over and above clear, effective day to day communications.

Books and a regular blog likely won't make you much money to speak of directly. And while there are a variety of benefits, you need to think about what you're not doing if you're spending a lot of time.

Re: How I motivate myself to write

#24

Post by rsj_hn »

vimy wrote: post #18
rsj_hn wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The autobiography is wonderful, and brilliant, but understand it is not so truthful. The type of aphorism you cited is typical of his output. It most likely never happened, but it should have happened. This is like Franklin's great public persona of temperance even though he was a notorious drunk. Franklin was a scoundrel, an inveterate liar, skirt-chaser, always obese, and extremely lazy. A man of great intelligence…

Is there a book where I can read more about this?

Hmm, the "air shower" I got from a Thaddeus Russell's podcast about famous dissolute men, in which he covered Churchill, Franklin, and others. You can ping him on Twitter or elsewhere for a source.

For Franklin's schmoozing and relationships with Allen and other notables, a short online monograph is here: https://scholarshare.temple.edu/bitstream/handle/20.500.1261...

Isaacson's biography is also great: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003YFJ3ZQ/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?...

Re: How I motivate myself to write

#25

Post by richardatlarge »

nonbirithm wrote: post #21

I liked this article as a collection of tips for effective writing, but did not find much about the topic of motivation within it. The author appears to be internally driven to write from the outset, and the advice given assumes that you also have the volition to write yourself and want to improve. Is lack of interest a solvable problem? This is a question I continually revisit. In one of the comment threads for the…

It may be that motivation begets more motivation, which would then become a question of how to get the ball rolling each day or, however often. For me if I want to write something I will not sit down to write but rather to brainstorm with notes, this gets the ball rolling. I often lie to myself saying just sit down for a few minutes to think and write, no big obligation. But I usually carry on for longer

Re: How I motivate myself to write

#26

Post by bsharitt »

nonbirithm wrote: post #21

I liked this article as a collection of tips for effective writing, but did not find much about the topic of motivation within it. The author appears to be internally driven to write from the outset, and the advice given assumes that you also have the volition to write yourself and want to improve. Is lack of interest a solvable problem? This is a question I continually revisit. In one of the comment threads for the…

>but did not find much about the topic of motivation within it.

Agreed, this is much more of a "What to do to write once you have the motivation". That's not to say it's not a useful article, but perhaps a bit misdirected by the title.

> Is lack of interest a solvable problem?

That is an interesting question. One that I also find my self faced with regularly(and solving the general issue of motivation in general). I'm more into the fictional/creative side of writing, bit I think that general "motivation" issue is the same. I know I want to write. I consider writing a good use of my time, but I have trouble getting myself to sit down and a spend significant amount of time writing. I know for me specifically there's some degree of depression that suppresses my motivation to do anything, but even between those episodes, I do find it more difficult to actually motivate myself to write.

I've thought about this a lot and have come across two separate issues. One, is that trying to create something "new" in the world presents a challenge in of it self, whether its technical or creative. It's something I run into even when I'm working on something technical for work. For me at least, this is the easier barrier to overcome because I do enjoy the challenge when I'm in a state of mind to rise to the challenge. And that state of mind brings me to the the second issue, and that is the catalyst of the motivation. For professional/technical work that catalyst is essentially and external force (i.e. I need to work to make money and live), but for personal projects there's not that external catalyst. When I was younger I always had motivation for personal projects and my daughter spends all of her free time drawing(and she's very good at it). So I wonder if spending all of your "creative juices" at work(and despite people always creating barriers between technical and creative work, I think they may fulfill/tap similar parts of the brain) is the real barrier. The author of the article even mentions that he's done this since leaving Uber. I would be interested in seeing any statistics that correlated marginally successful authors(in any format) with the really successful ones to see of the marginal ones were more productive with putting out content because they needed too versus the super successful ones that had a major hit or two and are basically set for life.

Re: How I motivate myself to write

#28

Post by jonnybgood »

nonbirithm wrote: post #21

I liked this article as a collection of tips for effective writing, but did not find much about the topic of motivation within it. The author appears to be internally driven to write from the outset, and the advice given assumes that you also have the volition to write yourself and want to improve. Is lack of interest a solvable problem? This is a question I continually revisit. In one of the comment threads for the…

> There is nothing you can do to motivate someone who is fundamentally a non-writer to be a writer. The interest will never be there, no matter what the person chooses to say or think on the contrary.

I heard once this expression for those who dislike wine: It's not that you dislike wine, you just haven't found the wine that you like.

Writers don't write on anything and everything. They write on what interests them. It's what they're writing on that keeps them writing. Whether that's fiction or non-fiction.

Switch writing with math. How does someone go from having no initial interest in math to pursuing a career in it like G.H. Hardy?

pg's essay "How To Work Hard" highlights this:

"I suspect most people have to learn what work is before they can love it. Hardy wrote eloquently about this in A Mathematician's Apology:

'I do not remember having felt, as a boy, any passion for mathematics, and such notions as I may have had of the career of a mathematician were far from noble. I thought of mathematics in terms of examinations and scholarships: I wanted to beat other boys, and this seemed to be the way in which I could do so most decisively.'

He didn't learn what math was really about till part way through college, when he read Jordan's Cours d'analyse.

'I shall never forget the astonishment with which I read that remarkable work, the first inspiration for so many mathematicians of my generation, and learnt for the first time as I read it what mathematics really meant.'"

Re: How I motivate myself to write

#29

Post by rahulpadalkar »

nonbirithm wrote: post #21

I liked this article as a collection of tips for effective writing, but did not find much about the topic of motivation within it. The author appears to be internally driven to write from the outset, and the advice given assumes that you also have the volition to write yourself and want to improve. Is lack of interest a solvable problem? This is a question I continually revisit. In one of the comment threads for the…

I think the lack of interest is because of lack of information. Eg. I don't like making YouTube videos but if it helps me make some money then i can find motivation to make videos.

Re: How I motivate myself to write

#30

Post by strken »

nonbirithm wrote: post #21

I liked this article as a collection of tips for effective writing, but did not find much about the topic of motivation within it. The author appears to be internally driven to write from the outset, and the advice given assumes that you also have the volition to write yourself and want to improve. Is lack of interest a solvable problem? This is a question I continually revisit. In one of the comment threads for the…

I don't think there's a binary of writers/non-writers. I think there's an energy threshold, above which people with an inclination to write would start doing so.

If you took the average person, put them at a desk in a locked room with pen and paper, and left them there, they'd eventually write or draw something out of sheer boredom.

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