Day 13
30 mins planning + 45 mins journaling + 1 hr planned writing
This 30 Day crash course aims to instil us with motivation, confidence, and a regular writing habit. But what underpins this commitment?
In Jacqui’s view, it is our Personal Motivating Factor.
This may not be as obvious as it seems at first glance. Many writers would love to have their name up in lights, their work heralded, their finances transformed . . . (I am a contrarian in many things, but this is an aspiration I also conform to.) But is that really why we write?
Only our Journals have the answer . . .
Yes, it’s another journaling session. I embrace / resist these days in equal measure.
One part of me loves interrogating my thoughts; discovering how I think is like my personal archeology; uncovering a buried network of thoughts invisible from the surface, yet wielding enormous influence. Okay; maybe “civil engineering” is a better metaphorical discipline than “archeology”. Our hidden thoughts are the systems which keep the city of our conscious mind functioning. But some of those networks were laid down many years ago, and are no longer fit for purpose. There is a satisfaction in discovering them, and relief in planning a redesign. That’s why I embrace these sessions.
My resistance comes from the time that they add to my writing commitment. If I am going to think about these large topics, I am going to think about them properly, and that takes me about an hour before I lose focus or feel emotionally drained. So, while I am pleased to be invited to do this work, I do feel it should be itemised in the “Exercise” part of the guide, rather than hidden in the discussion.
Journal Entry
What motivates you?
Go beyond your surface answer, by asking why do you want that thing? What other thing does it lead to? And so on.
Beneath the common motivations of success, reward, recognition . . . why do you really write? What would carry you on writing anyway, even without these things?
Exercise
- Journal your personal motivating factor.
- 1,000 words (I added the usual 30 mins planning): write something easy, something you really want to write, for the indulgence.
My response
- The journaling was pleasurable and helped me to recover some of the motivation I had been lacking recently. I had started to get a little disconnected from my writing over the last few sessions, not quite sure where it was leading, or why I was doing it. It was invigorating to discover my “deeper why” and I recommend this exercise to everyone!
- It turns out that I am motivated by the desire to connect and provide a framework for shared experience. I want praise and reward and material benefits, but the satisfaction I am really looking for, and the instigation for all my work, is the hope that it will have social and emotional value.
- I also noted that I wanted to use my commitment to writing to prove to myself what I can achieve when I decide to believe in something which seems impossible but it’s my job to make inevitable. There’s a lot of personal challenge involved in taking this path.
- My 1,000 words today were about a break up. I was feeling indulgently sad about one in my own life (albeit from over a decade ago!) and since there is one in the book, I decided to Go There. It ended up being very, very sad for me to write. Perhaps I over-indulged(!) Hopefully it works for the reader.
all course content copyright Jacqui Lofthouse thewritingcoach.co.uk