Why do you write? Part II

Aside from incentives and/or fear of punishment, Daniel Pink describes a lesser known, more fragile, motivation: the challenge of the thing. “DRIVE” on Amazon

Looking back, most of the motivations I listed yesterday spurred me on at one point or another, but the impetus that kept me going at 1 a.m. after those faded was as simple as the finish line. It was a ‘put up or shut up’ thing. I had no legitimate expectation of financial reward, a sober awareness that my novel would be lost in a pile of approximately 100,000 books published that same year, and that 99.999% of self-published books sell 200 copies at best. Who the hell was I to reasonably expect anything? I just had to finish it to the best of my abilities.

C.S. Lewis noted that reality was iconoclastic. My anxieties, impassioned desires, sincere intentions aren’t a magic wand I can wave at reality to conjure up my very own pumpkin coach. I pray and plead and dream, but it’s in God’s hands.

In fact, all of it is.

How much “drive” do you have?