MOTIVATION IN THE ART OF WRITING

I consider writing to be an art form. That's what keeps me at it day after day.

I do not write to be reactionary. I do not write just to hear myself talk -- or to see my work in print.

I write to exercise my imagination and creativity. I write as a form of venting what is going on in my mind. Ideally, I write to inspire like-mindedness; acknowledging hesitantly that you can't win 'em all.

I die a thousand deaths when something I've written seems to have drifted off into nothingness. And I worry when I get the impression that I have been dismissed, or not taken seriously by my targeted audience. I take utmost pride in authorship.

I have a compulsive sense of mission in what I write and I frequently battle demons in order to keep that direction alive. Generally there is satisfaction in fulfilling what is a need within me to express myself to the limits of my creative ability.

I believe that writing is a form of art because of the three aforementioned reasons:
   it exercises imagination,
      it is a form of expression,
         it is a powerful influencer.

If you’re a DIY enthusiast, a woodworker, or a handyman, you know that imagination plays a vital role when creating something. Without imagination, it’s almost impossible to be creative at all. Fortunately, writing enables me to form ideas that are beyond the box. It allows me to maximize thinking and analytic skills.

In my mind writing allows self expression just as artists express themselves through painting. This is why people write in diaries, journals, and blog sites. Art is defined as the human way of expressing oneself, and writing does an excellent job of allowing me to release feelings on a piece of paper or a website.

Writing, in all its varied forms, is an empowering and complex process. It calls upon the writer to bring together the random thoughts in the left and right sides of the brain and shape them into something useful, beautiful and inspiring so that another person can understand and appreciate it.

The need to feel understood and to know what one thinks about it, matters and is universal. We have all probably heard that writing is not only an art, but a science too. That may be true for the artistic endeavors, but how does it play out in actually writing a meaningful story?

If you break the aspect down into two elements, art and science, it helps to explain the how and the why. Writing craft is the technical-science side, while storytelling is the art side. The science of writing includes sentence structure, grammar and POV-active sentences. It’s all about knowing the difference between ‘telling’ and ‘showing’ the added layers to your characters.

The science of writing is all the details that go in to developing good craft and it is absolutely essential. Once in every great while, a gifted story teller comes along, sweeping people off their feet despite a lack of craft, but mostly it is practiced craft that enables a good story to be received –ungirding it, making it beautiful and shiny. Without effective craft writing, the story gets lost in a jumble of a poor backstory and POV issues.

I get the sense that people on the outside think there’s something magical about writing, that you go up in the attic at midnight and cast the bones and come down in the morning with a story, but it isn’t like that at all. You do it with the seat of your pants planted firmly in a chair in front of a computer monitor calling on all your creative skills and imagination, at all hours of the day and night. It's not a question of sitting down and letting it all pour out in mega seconds (i.e. I sat down to develop this simple Wrights Lane entry at 3:10 p.m. and it is now exactly 6:09 p.m. and I should have put supper in the oven an hour ago).

Succinctly, when it comes to writing, innovative speculation is critical. Whether planning to drench oneself in composing a poetic verse, believe that there is a novel in you, or just handling a blog entry or an article, creativity is what can transform it into a work of art.

Straightforward factual writing or news reporting might not be artful, but there is somehow one or more element of creativity in the way information is presented. They make you need to peruse and discover more. Basically, any sort of composing can be called art, yet genuine creativity is what transforms it into something extraordinary. It is not what you have that matters, but rather what you do with it...and in the end, how you present it.

As with any form of art, writing takes practice. Ideally, the more you do of it, the better you get.

I liken it to what former Toronto Blue Jay pitcher Dave Stieb said in his book -- "Tomorrow I'll be Perfect!"