What Motivates You?

     What motivates you?

     This seems like a straightforward question, and I suppose for some people, it is.

     For myself, this is an extremely difficult question to answer. Answering it, truthfully at least, requires intense soul-searching, which I’m not exactly a fan of.

     But, using myself as an example, I’ll give some of the basics.

     First, there’s the undeniable need for me to write. And that is a brutal truth: I have to write. It doesn’t matter if it’s a poem, a short story, a longer work of fiction, or a piece of nonfiction. I have the need to write. This need has been there since I was 9 years old and listening to my mother and stepfather argue. It was there when I sat in class – drawing, and writing – and being too much the antagonist and futile rebel to pay attention to what the nuns were trying to teach me.

     In high school, I met Mr. Richard White, a patient, intelligent author, and journalist who taught my English class of hormonal and testosterone-fueled students. He taught us how to craft our sentences and how to form our paragraphs into coherent stories, whether they were fiction or to deliver the news in a succinct fashion.

     My writing has always been a way to release the tension within myself, although I didn’t always see it as such. I harbored dreams, of course, of becoming a famous writer, someone as successful as Stephen King, or at least with the cult-like adoration of Lovecraft fandom. I wanted to create worlds where people could escape reality, just like I did when I was younger (and still do when I write).

     At this point in my life, as a husband, a father of three, and approaching the half-century mark, I don’t want to be famous anymore (although a healthy royalty check would be appreciated). What I want, what I need, is to create a place where the reader can seek refuge. We all desperately need to forget about the troubles and issues that we face in reality. I want my readers to find that in my stories. I want them to pick up the book, or click on the link, and read a story that takes them away, if only for a few minutes, where they don’t have to worry about the bills, or illness, or the ten thousand other problems and irritations that creep up in daily life.

     That’s my motivation.

     What’s yours?

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