XENITH

So far this week, I have attended two classes, read three chapters in various textbooks, written two articles (ok, the interview column doesn’t take much) and worked a whopping eleven hours at a job I can’t stand. That sounds like a lot of work, but really it isn’t, and what’s really depressing right now is that my bedroom, in the midst of all of the free time I seem to have between these activities, remains in the dismally atrocious state it has been in for the last two weeks.

I have a problem with motivation. For example, since I started writing this article I have gone to the bathroom, gotten a cup of coffee, read half a dozen poems, finished said cup of coffee and retrieved another one, thought about finishing the article, spent fifteen minutes chatting up a friend about the many uses of rutabaga (no joke) and finally I sat down, deleted one paragraph I had already written and wrote another paragraph to replace it. How exciting, no?

The thing is, I’m not the only one who does things like this. Pick someone, anyone you know who qualifies as a ‘starving artist.’ Chances are that person spends a good portion of their day fighting those exact same issues. Whether its being hypercritical over a piece of work or just being ‘too depressed’ to pick up your bedroom or fold the clothes that have been passed back and forth between your bed and your office chair for the last four days, we find so many excuses and other things to do than the thing that we really want to do.

That’s part of the reason why NaNoWriMo works so well for many people. It rescues them from the motivation trap by taking away any sense of responsibility for what they write. And, the fact that what is produced is often absolute garbage is the reason most people don’t finish. When you know what you’re doing is probably going to be thrown away, it makes it difficult to complete it. And, if you’re worried that someone else is going to think that what you’re writing is trash, you might feel the same way.

But I’ve learned something about motivation recently, things that Chris Baty, founder of NaNoWriMo has been talking about for years. We have to get out of the trap that we have to get it right on the first try. The reason people are afraid to clean their houses (and you know who you are) is that ‘it will just get dirty again.’ The fear that what is produced is anything short of perfect is somewhat paralyzing to those who are supposed to be experienced and productive at this.

My advice is to get over yourself. You are probably not as terrible or as wonderful as you imagine, and really, the reason you don’t finish the things you start is…(drum roll)… you don’t really want to.

But… but… I know. You have always dreamed of being a writer or a poet or an artist or an actor or a fireman or whatever it is you want to do but aren’t doing (yet, you say). Most of you, for sure, already know what it takes to get where you want to go. You don’t like it, and you spend hours and hours and days and weeks and finally, months and years trying to find another way. When it comes down to it though, if you really want, the way you say you want it, you’ll just sit your butt down and you’ll get to work.

Because at the end of the day, writers, a terrible writer who finished something is infinitely more likely to be published, with a paycheck in hand, than a Shakespeare, or Joyce, or Steinbeck who didn’t finish. And saving the world from all of that terrible literature should be all the motivation you need to get it done.

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