Motivations to Write

[Image - Copyright of E Langford] 

 

After two guest blog posts, I am honoured to write for More Than Writers regularly in this slot for a while. Though I feel guilty, as I’ve not been very active on my own blogs recently, this fresh motivation may be what I need to get my writing back on track.

What drives us to be intentional writers varies. It may be a specific interest or a desire for a particular outcome. I don’t remember what prompted me to write silly Valentine rhymes for others to use at primary school. However, I suspect being liked by my eleven peers was the goal. As a teenager, my poetry became song lyrics with a focus on fame. Though being discovered in the late 1970s was unlikely in rural Scotland where social media was the local newspaper. Hyperventilating whenever I tried to record myself on a cassette tape didn't help. The nearest I got to anyone famous was spotting a Bay City Roller in the local village bank and speaking to David Essex on a Saturday Superstore phone-in. I called to obtain a pair of David’s socks for my English teacher, as you do. I still believe that he only released ‘The Smile’ after I offered to write lyrics about his smile and piercing eyes in my letter of thanks.

Two decades of random writing attempts later, I took an opportunity to try freelance writing part-time when in Orkney. Realising poetry wasn’t lucrative, I turned to journalism which led to five good years promoting community events in print and radio packages. Recording myself interviewing others was much less stressful. I even had success in two separate hymn-writing competitions, though admittedly one only had three entries.

Now, in my late fifties, ‘being famous’ is no longer important. This gives me a freedom to focus on poetry again. Though, after an initial flurry for a couple of years, due to a tsunami of pent-up grief-based emotions, the motivation to generate verse has dried up again. Frustratingly, I’ve always found it easy to make time to write fun poems for friends and family, but writing for myself seems less of an incentive.

Early as a freelance writer, I felt it important to dedicate my desire to write before God. I wanted to remember that, though journalism often sought scandal and secrets, I had a choice what to write about and promote. I focused on three motivations: To Inform; To Reform and To Affirm. I also chose a few apt scripture verses* and hymns to create a short private ceremony to commission myself as a writer, asking God to bless my output.

In my current poetic doldrums, and with the challenge of writing monthly for MTW, crafting a new commission may be helpful. Setting some new milestones will allow me to take time before God to ask, and listen, where he wants my writing to go in this next phase of life. My hope is that when I understand my motivation for writing, the words will come more easily.

What motivates your writing now, and how have those goals and purposes changed over your time as a writer?

*Bible Verses used:  Proverbs 16:3; Ezekiel 9:11; Ecclesiastes 12:10,13,14; Proverbs 3:3; Micah 6:8

Elaine Langford is a sporadic writer, between long periods of wondering where the years have gone. She randomly posts in her Wordpress blogs, “Faith Thinking”, and “Poetry Puddles”, and on behalf of her rescue cat. Her motivation is challenged by an energy-limiting condition, a confusing neurodivergent mix of dyslexia, ADHD and Autism, and a large box of 1980s pop memorabilia waiting to be explored again.