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What Drives Your Writing?

By on September 20, 2018

While we writers love what we do, no one said it was easy. More often then not writing can feel like a bit of an uphill struggle. So why do we do it? What drives us to keep going even in the face of self-doubt, rejection, loneliness, and vulnerability? What keeps us motivated even when we feel like every criticism is personal? What makes us write even when our minds do everything to distract us, and we realize we haven’t taken a day off in years?!

Every so often it’s good to take a step back and remember what it is that makes us write, what keeps us passionate about our writing and stops us from packing it all in, even when the going gets tough.

While everyone has their reasons, here are some of the common drivers that keep writers writing.

Sharing our wisdom, knowledge, and stories with the world. Writers have a desire to tell people things. They want them to understand the information, to believe in the stories, to feel the benefits of the things they know, the places they’ve been,  the people they’ve met, and the things they’ve seen and done. Writers want to share their experience of the world.

To relate to our readers. There is nothing more satisfying in the world than the knowledge or even the hope that our writing has touched our readers in some way. Whether it motivates them to make a change, inspires them to keep soldiering on, heals their broken hearts, helps them move on, let go, shed a tear, smile or laugh out loud, the fact that it can relate to people on that raw and human level is a great motivator!

To find meaning in our own lives. Writing is incredibly cathartic - there is no denying that. By writing our stories, we can know ourselves better,  unlock things we’ve kept hidden, unpick the things that have confused us or to work through things that we’ve felt too scared to face. Exploring emotions, relationships and other worlds can be exceedingly helpful and healing, and enrich the writer’s life just as much as those of the people who read their stories.

To learn and improve. There is always more to learn and ways to improve our writing, to better ourselves, to experiment and find different paths to explore. Writing is excellent for that as it gives the writer limitless opportunities to express their creativity, and showing one's creative self is incurably satisfying indeed.

Writing is a gift that gives in so many ways. While it demands a great deal and can be exhausting, frightening, and disappointing it is the above that makes it so worthwhile and why writers have the drive, the passion and the desire to keep writing despite all of that.

What drives you to write? Share with us here!

Bethany Cadman -author of 'Doctor Vanilla's Sunflowers'

Bethany Cadman -author of 'Doctor Vanilla's Sunflowers'

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