Are you a happy or sad writer?

Finding motivation and purpose

My original vision for this site was to cover the craft of writing—things like plot structure, character development, POV, beginnings, endings, maybe even middles. The nuts and bolts, so to speak.

But I’ve found that this is not what I struggle with the most. There was a moment at the very start of my career when I sat down for the first time and faced the blank page. I had spent a month outlining, which was not enough time to really understand the shape of my story but at least gave me something to begin with. I realized then that I had no idea how to open my novel. Should I start with action? An intriguing line of dialogue? Some wandering description of my vast fantasy world? A zippy one-liner that would be remembered forever? And then, once I had that down, what should I do about sentence number two?

During this process, craft was important. I learned about Three Act Structure, which gave me major milestones to aim for at the 25%, 50%, and 75% marks of the story. I learned about finding my protagonist’s voice, and making them not just the center of the plot but also likeable for their own sake. I had a knack for description, but somewhat bland dialogue and terribly weak action scenes. And it was craft that helped me refine what I did well and shore up what I did not.

I finished that novel and made official-looking copies with cover art I threw together on my computer. I gave it away to friends and family. I think a few people even read it. It was not very good.

Book two was conceived of in a flash of inspiration while bunking out at a friend’s house. I remember lying on my air mattress and typing madly away on my phone, accidentally waking them up from across the room. That was when I decided to turn the screen’s tap sound effect off, and I never turned it back on. I let the ideas percolate for a couple of months, and then I wrote the book. Finishing just before Christmas 2020, I put together the first draft of Robot Human, writing over a thousand words a day for two months straight. I sent it off to friends. This time the response was different, enthusiastic; despite my unconventional premise (a socially-awkward robot as the main character) and a rather meandering storyline, my alpha readers told me there was something there. I had succeeded in getting them to care about this strange creature and his journey toward humanness.

I had done it without an outline. Without really knowing where I was going, without planning things ahead of time. If there was any “craft,” it wasn’t at the forefront of my mind. Robot showed me where his story went next and I merely followed in his wake, describing what I saw.

Looking back, I’m surprised by how different these books are. Medieval vs. modern, real world vs. imaginary, plotted vs. pantsed. They were entirely different expressions of myself as a writer, almost different enough that they don’t make sense coming from the same person.

But the thing they had in common was that they were both started and completed in the midst of turbulent times. My first book witnessed my final year of college and graduation, a new house, a new job, as well as the depths of my clinically-diagnosed depression. The second took place during the inaugural year of the COVID-19 pandemic, when uncertainty was at its height, a period overlaid with additional difficulties for me in the form of newfound medical issues that resisted easy resolution.

For a while after that I had writer’s block brought on by pandemic stress and burnout at work. I made significant life changes. I quit my job and started freelancing. I moved to a new house. I got offered my dream job, and turned it down. I cured COVID-19. (Just kidding).

Life straightened itself out, and eventually I bounced back—only I didn’t. I kept going. My life now feels better than it did before, perhaps the best it’s been since I became an adult. I feel a mix of freedom and responsibility, a sense of agency, a sense of purpose. I have friends and family whom I love.

And somehow I cannot seem to write. I know that my skills are at their sharpest right now; that despite my hiatus, I never stopped reading, never stopped learning, and I’m legitimately proud of what I’m capable of as a writer. I’ve mastered a few of those techniques I love to read in a book, an achievement which gives me much joy. I’ve consumed a borderline ridiculous amount of advice on the craft of writing. I’ve honed my skills as an editor, to the point where I always have something to offer when others comes looking for inspiration or guidance on their own manuscripts.

Perhaps this is a strange side-effect of my personality type: I love learning and love achieving, but once I’ve attained that sense of mastery I lose interest in actually using it. I’ve seen evidence of that in other areas of my life, particularly piano and video games.

Perhaps I need a new story to grab me and drag me along like Robot Human did, instead of things working the other way around. But is that something we have any control over? Isn’t it more like finding love?

Perhaps I’ve told all the stories I came to tell. Maybe I have nothing left to say.

Or perhaps—and here’s what I have yet to fully understand—there’s something about the darkness of life that helps me write. The more I think about it, the more this seems to be true. I used to write out of desperation, because it was the only way to express my own fears and frustrations. I wrote to connect with a deeper sense of beauty that was hidden under the mask-like layers of the troublesome world. I wrote to prove that I had a reason to live.

And now I’m happy. Happier, anyway. And as a result, I no longer have a deep-felt need to set down words on the page.

That doesn’t mean I’ve given up. I don’t want to give up. Even if I don’t want to write, I want to want to write. But I’m seeing that I need new reasons for writing, ones born out of light instead of darkness. Perhaps I can express joy as much as fear, or explore someone else’s broken world from my whole one, or poke and prod at life, or play.

But what I really need is an undeniable urge to write that wells up from deep inside, one that might be expressed in logic and rationality but that flows from a place more primal. I need to feel that I need to write.

Here, then, is your chance to help me out. Why do you write? Is there a list of reasons you can articulate? A single, undefinable feeling? Something else? Please tell me. I would love to know, in case something you say sparks something inside of me.

And last but not least: at the risk of trivializing the whole thing, I’m curious how many of you write when you’re happy versus writing when you’re sad. I figure I’m probably not the only one.

Thanks for sticking around during the long break between posts. And as always, thanks for reading.