It is important to remember that my opinions are not law in any way, shape, or form! Not everyone has the same experiences as I do in this field but it is valuable to share opinions on topics to try and help others!
Today I will be talking about how I stay motivated!
I am what psychologists would call a Strong Type A Personality, this means that I am a generally well-motivated individual. Personally, I feel that I am motivated because the world wants to challenge my resolves. Ever since I was small, my goal of being a novelist has been under fire. When I was still at school, my creative writing was sub-par. I had ideas but could never seem to articulate the world that I was immersed in. This left me limited in my ventures into the world of writing and my goal tended to be questioned by those who surrounded me due to the fact that I was not amazing at the one thing I aspired to do. But I kept at it! Why did I do that?
When I was younger, I felt that writing was the one thing that truly made me special and therefore, it would be ridiculous to pass up any opportunity to pursue that path.
When I met my best friend, she told me about a website called Wattpad. After her probing at me and asking why I had not yet made an account for the site, I admitted that I didn't think my work was good enough to go up online. From there, she pushed me to finish a project that I could post so I could start my journey.
It was on Wattpad that I was properly introduced to the world of fan-fiction. It was there that my writing journey began to take off. I started writing in a fanbase that was slowly but surely gaining more fans, and therefore my work was getting more and more reads. I found myself motivated by the pressure of creating something because someone else was expecting to see more of it. And from there, the only way was up.
I developed a schedule of daily updates of between 700 and 1200 words on this piece. My readership increased at a rate of knots and I was drowning in support! I found myself gaining confidence in my craft due to the support faces online were giving me! And through gaining confidence, I began to experiment with ideas I would have otherwise never try; such as writing a character going blind and demonstrating it through the quality of her description.
From there, I used what I had learned from fanfiction and applied it to original works. I used what I was learning from the online world to construct the building blocks of brand new ideas.
I managed to get an unconditional offer from my university due to the statistics from a fanfic. I threw everything I had achieved into a personal statement that gave me the platform to share the classroom with other writers!
So out of this anecdote, what is my actual advice for motivation:
In essence, I would suggest trying new things! When you go into a new area of writing and people read your work, particularly on a website like wattpad, it can take some time, but once you have people behind you and excited to see what you'll do next, you will probably feel more encouraged to create something incredible
Thank you for reading!
And remember:
Per Ardua Ad Astra!
- Imogen. L. Smiley
And remember:
Per Ardua Ad Astra!
- Imogen. L. Smiley
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