What Drives you?

[lovecraft68]

Not sure if I'll get across what I'm aiming for here, but curiosity has me making the effort.

What drives you?

There are basic surface answers to this question

I enjoy writing
I want to get better
I like seeing what people think of my work
I've set goals for myself here
I get to share my fantasies here that I can't discuss with friends/family


But those aren't the actual impetus for what we do, not the push that many of us-especially those doing it for a long time-have. There's something else. Something deeper, an emotional reason, a strong desire, a drive to do what you do and keep doing it as best you can. To write when you don't always feel like you want to, but more like need to. The thing that separates us from the people who have one or two stories to tell, then walk off and have no issue doing so, but that's not us. Might have started like that for some, "Let me give this a try" which then turns into the next and the next and so on...

Maybe you're not even consciously aware of it and this thread could get you to think on it.

Passion comes to mind and is important but even that needs a source.

Do a deep dive-or not so deep if the answer for you is obvious-and see what it is in you that feeds your creative beast.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I am driven first by my imagination. Ideas or inspiration that invoke an undeniable passion for expansion and expression.

Then the passion takes over. It typically ebbs and flows because my imagination never stops introducing new ideas and inspirations to challenge the old ones.

Finally, there is commitment. My internal demons that won't let me rest until I complete a task.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Nobody listened to me.

My father abandoned us when I was four years old. My mother was overwhelmed with providing for two young kids on her own in a relatively poor rural area. We moved a lot, so I couldn't make close friends.

I was a smart kid, with a vivid imagination. All through school, I achieved above my grade level. When we had in class reading time, I would finish well before the others, and would fidget and act out. One day, my teacher gave me a blank notebook and said, "If you are bored with these stories, why don't you write your own?"

So I did, and for her purposes, it worked. I filled that notebook with stories. In particular, there were tales of a little girl who became a forest ranger. While none of you read those, some of you are familiar with her adult adventures.

Eventually, I gave it up. That's common, particularly around puberty. Kids stop drawing, or taking dance classes, or writing stories...

My mom and my brother were the only people who ever read those stories.

Years later, I had so much bottled inside me that I thought I'd break down if I didn't let it out, if someone didn't listen to me. I started with posts on Tumblr, but that wasn't enough. I thought that if I expressed my experiences and thoughts in a fictionalized version, I might at last feel heard.

So, I came to Lit. And people listened to me. People even praised me for what I had to say and the way I said it. I can't imagine ever willingly silencing my voice.

Thanks for listening.

 

[lovecraft68]

Finally, there is commitment. My internal demons that won't let me rest until I complete a task.

That's a good explanation.

 

[lovecraft68]

Nobody listened to me.

My father abandoned us when I was four years old. My mother was overwhelmed with providing for two young kids on her own in a relatively poor rural area. We moved a lot, so I couldn't make close friends.

I was a smart kid, with a vivid imagination. All through school, I achieved above my grave level. When we had in class reading time, I would finish well before the others, and would fidget and act out. One day, my teacher gave me a blank notebook and said, "If you are bored with these stories, why don't you write your own?"

So I did, and for her purposes, it worked. I filled that notebook with stories. In particular, there were tales of a little girl who became a forest ranger. While none of you read those, some of you are familiar with her adult adventures.

Eventually, I gave it up. That's common, particularly around puberty. Kids stop drawing, or taking dance classes, or writing stories...

My mom and my brother were the only people who ever read those stories.

Years later, I had so much bottled inside me that I thought I'd break down if I didn't let it out, if someone didn't listen to me. I started with posts on Tumblr, but that wasn't enough. I thought that if I expressed my experiences and thoughts in a fictionalized version, I might at last feel heard.

So, I came to Lit. And people listened to me. People even praised me for what I had to say and the way I said it. I can't imagine ever willingly silencing my voice.

Thanks for listening.

Great post, and not unexpected from you as you've been open about your past.

Eventually I'll get to my answer, but I'll say now what you already understand, little motivates the way trauma and dysfunction can, the trick is to make it work for you rather than consume you.

 

[APilgrimSquare]

Curiosity, mostly. I'll get the germ of an idea and want to explore it. I didn't set out to focus on writing erotica, but over time I found that my imagination carried me through the drafting in ways it never did with other genres. Maybe I'm just a perv!

 

[AG31]

Do a deep dive-or not so deep if the answer for you is obvious-and see what it is in you that feeds your creative beast.

In my bio I describe a powerful, physical experience that lasted for maybe a year, but faded steadily over that time. It was accompanied by vivid fantasies. I think I discovered online erotica while looking for stories that fit my experience (only found one or two) and then it dawned on me that I could preserve my fantasies, and maybe discover like minded people if I wrote them down. I also discovered that I took a great deal of pleasure in putting words to experiences.

The physical experience has gone, and with it stories to write down, but it was an intensely pleasurable and memorable time.

I think the most accurate answer to your question is a storm of testosterone (I'm female) probably triggered by some age related breakdown in the balance of hormones.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I just have to create things and I'm not all that crafty with my hands so music and writing are what is left. If I can't create things I get frustrated and unhappy. I'm very theoretical and not very practical, so songs and stories are the easiest things to pull out of my head and make real. Now, I don't do this just to crank out easy ideas. I push myself to create the most challenging ideas that I can. If I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it well. Sometimes this is a detriment. I have a shitty day job but I'm going to do it well. I can't do it half-assed. I put all of this energy and effort into doing it well and sometimes I wonder why the fuck I bother?

So I write these stories, and right now lit is the best place for me to share them. If they don't get out, I go crazy.

At this stage in my writing, I can't really say that I write so that people will enjoy the story. I write to give the reader an enjoyable reading experience, even if they didn't care for the outcome of the plot. What I write for is to induce an emotional reaction. Not just a shock, but a continuing emotional immersion into the story. To me, a reader saying, "Well, I'm not really sure what to make of this ending, but wow, what a ride getting there," is easily as satisfying as, "Great, loved it!" That's what I'm going for.

 

[SimonDoom]

Great thread idea. I can't recall that anyone has asked it quite this way.

I think about this all the time, because my writing motivation is a roller coaster. It's not my job, it's just a hobby, and a (sometime) passion.

Number 1 reason: the joy of creating something. The artistic impulse. It's incredibly satisfying. Even if the stories stayed on my computer and were never read by anyone, there would still be some satisfaction in having composed them. I didn't write a single word of fiction in my whole adult life until I started writing crazy stories for this place. It's so satisfying.

Number 2: connecting with readers. I love the fact that people read my stories and enjoy them. It doesn't bother me at all that some don't like them or downvote them. That's totally outweighed by knowing that some enjoy them. I write mindful of those who like my stories and ignore those who don't. They can read something else. I get pleasure from knowing I made somebody come.

Number 3: The naughty thrill. It's fun to write about sex. It's fun to spin crazy sexual fantasies with words. It's a turn-on.

Number 4: Improving my skills. I'm working on some non-erotic writing projects, albeit slowly and in an undisciplined way, and I like to use my Lit story writing as an exercise to keep getting better.

 

[SimonDoom]

Nobody listened to me.

My father abandoned us when I was four years old. My mother was overwhelmed with providing for two young kids on her own in a relatively poor rural area. We moved a lot, so I couldn't make close friends.

I was a smart kid, with a vivid imagination. All through school, I achieved above my grave level. When we had in class reading time, I would finish well before the others, and would fidget and act out. One day, my teacher gave me a blank notebook and said, "If you are bored with these stories, why don't you write your own?"

So I did, and for her purposes, it worked. I filled that notebook with stories. In particular, there were tales of a little girl who became a forest ranger. While none of you read those, some of you are familiar with her adult adventures.

Eventually, I gave it up. That's common, particularly around puberty. Kids stop drawing, or taking dance classes, or writing stories...

My mom and my brother were the only people who ever read those stories.

Years later, I had so much bottled inside me that I thought I'd break down if I didn't let it out, if someone didn't listen to me. I started with posts on Tumblr, but that wasn't enough. I thought that if I expressed my experiences and thoughts in a fictionalized version, I might at last feel heard.

So, I came to Lit. And people listened to me. People even praised me for what I had to say and the way I said it. I can't imagine ever willingly silencing my voice.

Thanks for listening.

My experience has been very different, but I relate to the concept of feeling "bottled up" and appreciating Literotica and erotica writing as a satisfying release of something long pent up and yearning to be expressed. That's how it has felt for me.

 

[onehitwanda]

Words are my faith, writing is my plainsong. I could no more stop writing than I could stop singing or hearing music thundering in my head and heart every waking moment. They are at the core of who I am.

 

[WaxPhilosophic]

I just have to create things and I'm not all that crafty with my hands so music and writing are what is left.

I was going to be a smartass and say, "a red Subaru," and then explain about how it's the creative process that drives me. But the post by @pink_silk_glove sums it up very well. It's the artistic expression. The fact that people enjoy reading my stories is a nice byproduct, but I need the creative outlet more than anything.

 

[THBGato]

I enjoy writing
I want to get better
I like seeing what people think of my work
I've set goals for myself here

All of this.

Plus - and this is going to sound odd, but bear with me - a big reason for me personally is to share other people's work. I love loads of the stories here. I also think that many of the lesbian stories I love so much can be/are deeply helpful for closeted and curious women coming to terms with their own sexuality and thus need to be read. I wish I had the guts to go on social media and tell my RL friends about them, as I think many of the best stand shoulder to shoulder with any traditionally published work.

But I don't.

So I do what I can to promote other stories through my own stories on this site. This might be through direct mentions in my stories (complete with hyperlinks) or reviews. Or simply through the fact that I curate lists of stories, and by attracting readers to follow me, this then hopefully draws their attention to those lists. For the best writers, of course, the effect of my support is negligible. But it always gives me a little thrill when I see a comment on a story I've linked to that says "THBGato sent me here..."

My job gives me the opportunity to be creative, so if I stopped writing tomorrow I'd have other outlets. I don't write because I need to, but because I want to.

 

[Rob_Royale]

I think writing in general appeals to folks who are both left and right brained in equal measure. Creative and analytical. Because these people have the creative drive but also the drive to write it well. And it's more than just grammar and spelling; it's how the story flows, how the plot and characters develop.
And of course, there's varying degrees of it with completely non-creative at one end and uber-creative at the other, but one would never write anything but non-fiction and the other needs someone else to do it.

I have been a modeler for many years and knew that was definitely a both sides of the brain task, requiring creativity and a decent measure of engineering understanding. I think writing is the same way. I've taken a few left/right brain tests online over the years and have been unsurprised by the results.

 

[old_prof]

I am not a long term writer, so I'm out of your target responder. It's been less than a year since I wrote my first piece of fiction in fifty years. But I'm also not a one or two piece and done writer. I've got 58 works posted here so far. If all goes well, I will be up on my fourth site later this week. I'm hooked and I don't expect to stop.

I enjoy writing
I want to get better
I like seeing what people think of my work

The first three of your simplistic reasons are all true for me, but you're right there is a deeper part.

I more than enjoy writing. I crave it. At least when it's flowing. I hate everything in life when it's not. As I write that, it sounds a lot like an addiction. And my wife is starting to chirp at me that it drags me away from everything else. But I can't say no to doing it. There has always been something in me that needs a release. For fifty years, programming was my creative release, and I was obsessive about that. Until I suddenly no longer wanted to do it 17 months ago. And during the six months when I couldn't program (or read) because of a concussion, I dove heavily into photography. Writing is the best emotional release of the three.

I have always been driven to improve, to advance my skills in any mental activity. I know I;m a complete klutz; physical activities have a very low ceiling for me. Once upon a time I could be a good distance runner through sheer willpower, but asthma and then neglect of my physical conditioning ended any further pursuit of that. My improvement over the last year is the thing I am most proud about it.

I would like to think that I would be getting good feedback on my writing from posting the stories here, but I can no longer say I believe that. The ratings have become a matter of how many of the 1-bombs the sweeps detect. One of my stories went from 4 to 4.95 during Friday's sweep. But none of the stories that had been hammered Wednesday night (I got a few dozen 1's across multiple stories in a few hours Wednesday night). The stories dropped by an average of almost three quarters of a point.

The comments are too rare to be meaningful, especially since my most recent novels were both in low volume categories.

 

[lovecraft68]

I more than enjoy writing. I crave it. At least when it's flowing. I hate everything in life when it's not. As I write that, it sounds a lot like an addiction.

I think a lot of us can identify with this to some extent. The way the writing goes is often how the day goes.

 

[HordHolm]

Got to get it out of my head. Even if (most of the time) I metaphorically screw it up and chuck it in the bin.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

"a red Subaru,"

Kiri-oi Rolls Royce (A yellow Rolls Royce).

 

[SimonDoom]

I think writing in general appeals to folks who are both left and right brained in equal measure. Creative and analytical. Because these people have the creative drive but also the drive to write it well. And it's more than just grammar and spelling; it's how the story flows, how the plot and characters develop.
And of course, there's varying degrees of it with completely non-creative at one end and uber-creative at the other, but one would never write anything but non-fiction and the other needs someone else to do it.

I have been a modeler for many years and knew that was definitely a both sides of the brain task, requiring creativity and a decent measure of engineering understanding. I think writing is the same way. I've taken a few left/right brain tests online over the years and have been unsurprised by the results.

I agree with you. What kind of modeling do you do? When I was young I built model rockets and was involved in model railroading for a while. Both activities that appeal to the right brain/creative and left brain/analytical.

I almost started a few brush fires with model rocketry. That was interesting. I'm not sure there's anywhere left where one can do that.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

Breathing. If I don't write, I die. Writing is my way of breathing, and my way of understanding everything. It is in equal parts alchemical, oracular, analytical, and entertainment.

It's as simple as that. The page never judges.

 

[Areala-chan]

I've participated in many athletic and creative endeavors over the years, and it turns out writing is the only thing I'm any good at. I can't draw, I can't paint, I can't sculpt, there are no musical instruments I've ever been any good at. I've had voice lessons, and I won't get booed off stage at karaoke night, but I'm not winning any auditions on The Voice. I have no skills with a hammer. I can't cook worth a damn.

All I can do is write, and even then, I'm not good enough to ever get traditionally published. But as far as expressive and creative outlets go, it's all I have. I'm a depressive creative, so when I'm struggling with feeling like I'm not good enough, which is more often than not, I channel that into poetry or prose so I can get the emotions out and keep from doing anything more extreme.

Writing is the only way I will ever leave my tiny mark on a world that has been trying its best to grind me into emotional paste since I was six years old. It's my "Areala-chan Woz 'ere" graffiti to mark my presence. The stories I write are all one big tapestry of 'my story', celebrating triumphs, memorializing losses, and dealing with emotions.

There's a famous story of a man who goes walking on the beach after a storm. He notices all the starfish which have washed up on the shore, but he also notices a little girl who is picking up the starfish one by one and throwing them back into the sea. When he points out what she's doing is silly, because there is ten miles' worth of beach, she's only one person, and what she's doing won't make any difference, she responds by throwing the starfish she's holding into the water and saying, "It made a difference to that one."

Each of my stories, each of my poems, is a starfish that I'm tossing back into the oceans of creativity to share. Occasionally, someone finds worth in one of them. And I get to feel like I made a difference.

 

[Comshaw]

What drives me to this particular endeavor? It's multifaceted and the same thing that drives me to other things in my life.

I construct things. Over the years I've built all kinds of things: houses, furniture, cabinets, tractor attachments, fireplaces, car parts, boats (wooden and fiberglass), knives, fishing poles and much more. I also cook, bake and sew, which is a kind of construction. It's almost a compulsion for me to build things.

I'm an intorvert. As one, I take a lot of alone time. Some of that time is used to imagine things. I got into a lot of trouble as a kid with my teachers for "daydreaming". I think they might have been a bit surprised at the depth and breadth of the worlds I was traveling through, sitting there at my desk.

When those two things finally came together and merged, that's when I started writing down some of those stories. To me writing a story isn't much different than building a fireplace. To make it a strong construct, to make it last, each stone of a fireplace must be placed just so. The firebox and flue needs be shaped just so and the chimney needs be the right height above the surrounding building. A story is the same. Each passage needs to convey a meaning, sometimes two or three if it can be done. It needs to be coherent, as articulate as I can make it and impart what I want it to. I don't manage that all the time. Sometimes those stories crumble toward their end. Thank goodness I'm better at stone masonry than I am at word construction.

Unlike many here, I don't write a lot of stories. My story writing is interdispersed with other building compulsions. Sometimes I crave the hot smoke of a forge and the ring of a hammer on hot steel, or the smell of sawdust and the warm feel of wood under my hands. But sometimes, sometimes a tale gets stuck in my head and the only way to get it out is put it down in writing. I'm a hobby writer. I've never claimed to be anything else. I don't think I could do it for a living because I can't, or won't do it on demand. For me it's a labor of love. And when I'm done, I can step back and no matter what imperfections I've left on display can say, "I did that".

Comshaw

 

[Rob_Royale]

I agree with you. What kind of modeling do you do? When I was young I built model rockets and was involved in model railroading for a while. Both activities that appeal to the right brain/creative and left brain/analytical.

I almost started a few brush fires with model rocketry. That was interesting. I'm not sure there's anywhere left where one can do that.

Scale autos. My dad was into it back in the 50s and he bought them for me when I was a kid to help get through the Long Island winters. It did it all my life and I got to the competitive level and have a stack of plaques and trophies. But I sort of burned out shortly before discovering writing erotica.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

There was an ill-fated attempt to stave off encroaching insanity, or senility, whichever is winning.

It proved futile and when my typing produced more errors than not, it was time to move on. There are times when I can look at the keyboard and not be able to figure out which keys to push.

I've made about 30 corrections in this post.

 

[dirk2024]

I originally came to Lit as just a reader.

I have trouble sleeping at night, my mind races (with usually negative thoughts) that usually prevents me from sleeping. So I started fantasizing to at least give myself something pleasant to think about and would fall asleep faster. I had one primary scene that I would play out most of the time. After a while, I decided I wanted to write it out as I kept forgetting most of what I thought of the evening before. So I started to write. It's still unpublished, but now its around 15 chapters, each with a different angle and around 75k words.

In the meantime, I started working on other stories and found that I enjoy the process. I enjoy learning about writing and trying to improve. Not only does it help my mind, but the creative aspect is thrilling. I enjoy entertaining people, historically through conversational humor, and writing gives me another way to entertain. I like coming up with the idea's, and while its sometimes frustrating, I like writing the story itself.

So, it's the creation, plus the function of focusing my roaming mind that motivates me to write. Plus, that thrill of seeing one of my creations published helps too.