Kyle Kerr

Motivation - Guest Post by Gary Braver!

03/14/10 | On Writing | 0 Comments

We all need a little motivation sometimes.  Until recently, it was something that I was severely lacking.  I’d finished my first book but couldn’t find the urge to start the second.  Trying to get noticed in an industry that’s oversaturated with aspiring talent and having financial difficulties due to declining sales is a daunting task, and I think I was letting it get the better of me.

Well, I reached out to a number of writer friends of mine and asked what keeps them motivated, and I’ll be posting their responses as I get them.

First off is one of my good friends, Gary Braver.  I actually met him in Boston as Professor Goshgarian (he has three novels published under his real last name, and four under his pseudonym), and took his class on the modern bestseller.  We would eventually meet again in Maui, where he was an instructor at the Maui Writer’s Conference in 2007, and we’ve been friends ever since.

Known for his gripping thrillers and thought provoking plots, Gary Braver is the bestselling author of seven novels, including Gray Matter, Flashback (winner of the 2006 Massachusetts Honor Book Award, the only thriller ever to do so), and his most recent Skin Deep.  You can find out more about Gary and his works at his website.

The other night I had dinner with a fellow novelist about what keeps us writing. And we concluded that, cliché as it may be, we write out of passion, not the pay.  (In fact, we each have day jobs by necessity.) And the passion is like a low-grade fever—always there and a little distracting.  For most of us who write, the passion existed before the idea to publish.  We wrote in secondary schools, probably in college—for English classes, maybe even a creative writing course, possibly for the school newspapers. And we were probably good at it and were encouraged.

So, the fundamental motivation to write is grounded in the realization that we can, that we have talent, that we are capable of doing what others cannot do. I can’t fix my car nor play piano nor do my own taxes. I pay others to do those for me. But I’m lucky enough to have enough talent in something I love to do. I have a CPA friend who’s passionate about numbers and tax laws. I’d rather have serial root canal than do what he does.

I also teach fiction writing and popular literature, which makes my day job ideal for inspiring my passion.  I’m sure my publisher would prefer me not to have a day job so I could turn out books once a year instead of once every two years.  Of course, if my publisher paid me enough to quit teaching, I could probably do that.

I know successful novelists who don’t have day jobs, who support themselves on their novels. For them, motivation is making their deadlines so the machine doesn’t break, so they can continue pursuing their passion and talent. Not exactly a news flash.

But for those people who write and have unfulfilling day jobs, motivation comes harder. I suppose the only advice I can offer is to keep their eyes on the prize—getting a book published. But you should also be certain that you have the stuff.  Most people who want to be published writers don’t have the talent to do so. Or they aren’t good at living in their heads for long periods of time. You have to like solitary confinement with your own imagination. If you can do that and if you have the talent and the passion, then motivation is believing in yourself and realizing that the people publishing today will eventually be replaced by younger writers.

Readers want new authors, and publishers need new authors.  So, if that day job is turning your blood into sludge, then make time to write to keep the creative fires burning and casting light on that prize.

The key element, then, is time--time to write around your day job. If you’re a night person, set aside a couple of hours in the evening to write. If you’re a morning person, get up a couple of hours earlier, especially on weekends. Spend holidays at the keyboard. Call in sick and write your brains out.

And remember this: There’s no such thing as writer’s block. That’s plain laziness. That’s a cop-out—kind of like saying you have dysentery and can’t write. If you’re in the middle of a story and feel stuck, jump to a chapter that you know has to be in the book and write that. Or go back and polish an earlier chapter or two. Do anything to keep verbal.  And if you’re still stuck, read an author you love or would like to write like—looking at his or her material the way a carpenter looks at a house. Read slowly; study how they get in and out of scenes, how characters are created so succinctly; how phrasing is fresh and clever. But do whatever is necessary to stay verbal, to remain in that fictive mode. And with luck that knot will untie itself, and you’ll be back on track.

Thank you for those inspirational words, Gary!  And thank you for agreeing to be a guest poster on my blog.  Everyone else: if you haven’t done so already, please check out Gary’s work, especially his latest thriller, Skin Deep!

I hope you’ve all enjoyed my first guest post on motivation and have taken from it as much as I have.  More to come in the following weeks!

Until next…

Kyle W. Kerr