Finding the proper motivation to produce quality writing takes patience and an open mind.
Every once in a while, a Facebook post catapults out of my newsfeed and kicks me squarely in the teeth.
"Where do you find your inspiration for writing, or rather, what is your muse?"
Wouldn't you know it -- all the other members in the Facebook group had sensational responses, citing finely-tuned motivational methods rooted in scientific theory and the obliqueness of human cognition. They waxed enthusiastic on the glories of music, history, and nature as benevolent wellsprings of illumination. What did I have?
Jack squat.
Up until that moment I was proud of not having a writing muse. I preferred to let story plots hit me like a bolt of lightning, rare but spectacular, unexpected but welcome. (Not that anyone welcomes a lightning strike. You know what I mean.)
In the space of a tooth-shattering sentence, I was forced to confess that I neither had motivation nor sought it. I've always struggled with feeling like a poser -- no college, no training, no published work to make me a legit author -- and my utter lack of inspirational sources seemed to solidify in my mind that I had no business being a writer.
I think we all entertain feelings of inadequacy from time to time. I'm not earning any Mom of the Year awards or shimmying up the corporate ladder in a pencil skirt, and for the most part I'm okay with that. The cold fact is that our ambitions change over time; what was fiercely important a decade or even five years ago gets replaced by a sparkly new dream. In my teens, I couldn't wait to get married. In my 20s, having babies was the path to Shangri-la (dear Lord, why didn't you put in a U-turn?!?). Here I am in my 30s and those things, having been accomplished, don't hold the weight they used to. Besides keeping my kids from killing one another during cooperative Minecraft play, all I want to do is be a great writer.
But as I watch my peers participate in writing courses, challenges, competitions, and market their literary careers to the max, I know I'm not being "all I can be." Go ahead, ask me to list all my excuses for not trying. I could entertain you for hours. What it really boils down to, though, is laziness and lack of motivation.
I can fix lazy. It wouldn't even be as painful as waking up early to exercise. I can make room in my life for some training and honest-to-goodness practice. What I can't fix is lack of motivation. Can a person choose their motivation? Forgive me for philosophizing a smidge, but it seems to me that motivation chooses us. We may learn the signals, recognize the patterns, even discover how to force the trigger on those inspirations, but it lies outside our sovereign power to select their source.
What is your muse? Is it music? art? life events? family history? people watching? poetry? movies? nature?
I'm still finding mine.