This essay was written from a prompt during my local weekly writing group. It coincides with the QOTD for author Sacha Black’s Author Life #WritersofInstagram July challenge. I think it’s beneficial to examine motivations every once in a while, this was an opportunity for me to do so. I hope you enjoy it, and leave any comments below, I’d love to hear them.

Writing has been present in my life at different times and under different circumstances. I discovered an affinity for it somewhat in sixth grade when I was assigned my first research paper. My topic was Irving Berlin; a topic I had no real interest in, though I still learned much about the man and his accomplishments.

But I learned more about the process of writing.

That was when the process of research-outline-write according to outline-revise-submit was the accepted method. And being someone with high Strategic strength according to the Gallup Strengths Test, it worked very well for me. In fact, I kept the same process throughout high school and into college.

That was forced writing- done because I had to. My English professor in college told me that I wrote very well, and that it seemed to come easy for me, that he found a fluency and confidence in my work. At the time, I wasn’t sure exactly what he meant, but the comment stayed with me as a bolster when I needed it.

Once I graduated, I didn’t need to write any longer. My hands were tied up in soil, plants, and garden tools.

I journaled off and on, here and there, but never for any length of time. The exception to that being when I was in Ireland. I did keep an almost daily journal of that nine months for the express purpose of recording all of what I did, felt, and experienced there. It is one of my most cherished possessions, even today.

It was only three years ago that I decided I wanted to write my own novel after a book- A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness- had a real impact on me. I fell in love with everything about it, and have done so again since then with the Shades of Magic series by V. E. Schwab. Both of these ‘book hangovers’ have only reinforced my main motivation for writing- to give someone else the same feeling those influential books have given me.

There is a quote out there in the internet world that says something like “Don’t give up writing, maybe someday YOU will be someone’s favorite author.” That whole idea drives me. Very little apart from grand architecture and works of art truly survive through time like the written word. In some way, I think we all want to leave an impression, and this is how I’d like to. So I guess I’m writing to make a mark.

[Isaac] Azimov said he ‘thinks through his fingers.’ I can understand that, but my fingers have no hope of keeping up with my mind. One of my biggest challenges of writing is getting what I’m thinking down on the screen before it’s gone. By the time the sentence is finished printing, my mind is three thoughts ahead. I’ve even wondered if my fingers have some sort of memory of their own, honestly.

But that’s not to say that I know every line that makes it to the page ahead of time, or even that I know what my characters will actually do. I know their major actions, but not necessarily all the little steps in between.

For example, I started writing a short story a few months ago for an online competition. I had the prompt, and the max word count, so I started in on an outline. That went fine, too. Then I sat down to write. I read the opening scene of this story to my weekly writing group, it involved a dragon chase. When I got to the second scene, two characters jumped up and interjected themselves into the mix, and I had no idea where they came from. My fingers went along with them anyway.

That story is now finished but did not make it to submission. From a starting word count of 5000, it burgeoned to over 9000 words when it was done. Those two characters insinuated themselves into the story and took it into depths I hadn’t planned for, but which I really love. It may still make it to another submission, but I also think it will make a great reader magnet and prequel explanation to the novel series. It was not wasted time or energy.

Many writers say they write to let the stories inside them out, to give them life. This short story has been an example of that for me as well. When I’m in character, the words flow and my mind shows me all of the scenes in crystal clarity as we go, it’s almost like a trance. Then I have to go away and do other things for a while, because it is exhausting, despite the exhilaration I feel for being a vampire (in that story), or my magically-endowed protagonist while writing.

I guess I write to create something lasting, I hope, and to exercise my creativity. To be someone or something else for a while, and to paint the images in my mind in words someone else can interpret their own way. The mind is an amazing tool, so complex and unique. Did you know there are people who think in images and others who think in words? I can’t fathom thinking in words, my inner monologue is too full of images and color. Through writing, however, I can communicate with that other mind in their own language. That to me is reason enough to write, and why writing and human authors will never fade away.~

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