Please Let Me Motivate You With My Gesticulations And Screams

Once in a while someone says to me on social media that they need a little motivation to write, and could I motivate them? Could I yell at them? Calls have been made to product a bobblehead or stuffed animal of me that you can place on your desk and said replica will gibber and wail in a most beardly of fashions, encouraging you to write with the blunt mania of the truly deranged.

I have no such bobblehead, sadly.

But, I figure, I have this post.

And in this post, I will motivate you in the bluntest, most brutal fashion I can muster. Which is to say — it won’t be kind? Kindness is sometimes required as a motivational tactic, and a soft touch is there to remind you that no, you don’t really need to write every day, and yes, writing advice is generally a smoldering sack of rat-crap, and that indeed you need to do you and your gut instincts are your best friend when it comes to ARTING HARDER LIKE A PROPER ARTFUCKER. And yet? This is not that post. This is not the soft touch. This is the, “Me filling a sock full of inspiration coins and bludgeoning you about the skull and shoulders with it until you sit your ass down and juice the art from your body like blood from a throttled squirrel” touch.

Now, as always, hold still and let me yell at you.

Occasionally in all caps.

*noisily sucks on a lozenge*

*takes a sip of water*

*clears throat*

GODDAMNIT SHIT FUCK WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE

WHY ARE YOU NOT WRITING

WHAT THE WIGGLY WANGDONG ARE YOU THINKING

oh no no no I know it’s so hard being a writer

*rolls eyes so hard they pop out of my skull and drop down a sewer drain*

*am now blind*

*bees fly out of empty eye sockets*

ha ha ha you know what’s actually hard?

BEING A JANITOR IN AN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL IS HARD because kids puke basically all the time and they don’t make that kid clean it up, oh no, they call the janitor, and that poor fucker has to show up with sand and a bucket and he has to deal with barfspatter full of milk and roof-shingle pizza and like, four Sour Patch kids, and he’s gotta suck it up and make the child-retch go away — and then those same barfy turd children have the gall to make fun of him for it because nobody respects janitors even though they are performing a vital function that nobody wants to do

BUT SURE IT’S VERY HARD TO SIT AND MAKE UP FANCY WORDS AND CHARACTERS ALL DAY

*shrug emoji*

look I’ll just make up a character right now:

REGINALD P. SNURLIQUE, the first regent of Zoldovia; he has a thing for pointy chairs, waltzes, and public masturbation, and he has a parrot with a goiter who insults religion.

here is another character:

COMMANDER JESSIE BEAGLE, the oneironaut, a dream-rider scouring the depths of the slumbering human subconscious in search of her lost love, LIEUTENANT STEVE MCSCROOGLE, either that or she’s just looking for a really good Monte Cristo recipe because a good sandwich can not be underestimated or overlooked.

hey here are some words I just made up

DONGFEATHER. JIZZOLOGY. GUMPUS. FARPTUM. PAGALOPHY. SNUP.

here are some more words

TZZNORP. VWOMMMZ. HYPRODELPHIA. SCIZZARD. WRINJILI.

here are a few insults

SHITWIZARD. BARF-GARGLER. SPACKLEHUMPER. FUCK-APE. CANKERNIPS.

ohhhh here have some motivation — *writes an inspirational message on a Post-It note, tapes note to end of steel-toe boot, kicks note up into your colon, wriggles toes to release note*

WRITING IS JUST YOU STARING AT AN EMPTY SPACE AND THEN LIKE AN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLER BARFING UP THE CONTENTS OF YOUR SKULLSTOMACH — WHATEVER WEIRDO SHIT YOU’VE GOT DIGESTING IN THERE, YOU JUST GO graaaaaaaabbllatch AND THAT FOUL-STINKING SLURRY SPLATTERS EVERYWHERE AND THEN LATER YOU KIND OF TAKE YOUR EDITORIAL HANDS AND GO pat pat pat AND slip slup snup AND THERE YOU GO, A SECOND DRAFT WHERE YOU SCULPT HOT BARF INTO SOMETHING RESEMBLING A SHAPE

Some people can’t do this shit! Some people don’t want to do this shit! But you do. So do it! You have a privilege to take your bizarre imagination and headbutt it into the world. Behold your desire! Do what compels you! Seize the privilege.

…

…

WHAT THE DEEP-FRIED FUCK ARE YOU STILL DOING HERE

WHY ARE YOU NOT WRITING

IF YOU WANT TO WRITE THEN WRITE

HOW DIFFICULT IS THAT

look goddamnit IT’S NOT GOING TO WRITE ITSELF it’s not like you go to sleep with a pen duct-taped to your hand and then you wake up with a masterpiece written (though that actually explains James Joyce’s FINNEGANS WAKE) — no! You have to have to fuse your sexy writer ass to the chair and go CLICKY CLACKY TAPPY CLACK with your fingers on the keyboard and summon words out of the ether like some kind of word-wizard and shit.

I mean SWEET HOT HELL, human history is in part the history of humanity making up letters and words and punctuation for you to use and if you willfully choose not to use them then you have just SQUANDERED THE EFFORTS OF ALL OF HUMANITY and that’s just rude is what it is.

JESUS PISS ON AN BICYCLE whuh whah I mean what the crap, other people are more successful than you? YES. DUH. Did you expect to be LORD ROYAL NUMBER ONE WRITER? Like, the bestest-selling, most award-winningest ink-slinger that ever done slung ink? You have to be BEST OF ALL or NOTHING EVER? Oh, and what else, you’ve got IMPOSTOR SYNDROME? Hey, get in line. We all stowed away on this boat. None of us belong here. We’re all hiding underneath blankets hoping none of the real writers figure out we’re here, except those people you think are real writers are also hiding under blankets — probably like, four feet away. We’re all trespassers, and you know how we get away with it? Just by doing it! By committing. By hunkering down. By making it happen with effort and thought and by shuttling off our myriad neuroses and anxieties for some other day, some other situation, some other problem. Oh, you didn’t get that publishing deal you wanted? Or the agent? That sucks. It does! And it also doesn’t matter because that’s how this business goes, that’s how life is, that is is the cost of existing. Did you think every day would offer an eager line of people serving you up your wishes on shiny platters? Or did you expect that — gasp — it would take work and improvement and effort and iteration and reiteration? Because it does. It does require that. All things require that. Writing isn’t a hula hoop — you don’t just pick it up and give a couple hip-shimmies to get that motherfucker spinning. Writing is a complex act. It takes time and failure and more failure and a little success and a little luck and more failure and then REAL success and then hey oops more failure again.

GOD FUCK SHIT

Let’s say you’re riding your mount (horse, camel, motorcycle, taun-taun) across the desert and then the thing just keels over and dies gassily — do you let it fall on you and then you lay there? Sun beating down, sucking you dry, crows picking out your soft bits? Breathing in the carcass’ death-emissions? Or do you crawl free and then look for the next horse? OF COURSE YOU LOOK FOR THE NEXT HORSE. Because you don’t want to die.

Writing is making stuff, and making stuff is the creative version of NOT DYING.

So, don’t die.

Go out there.

Make shit.

Create stuff.

Yes, it’s hard.

And also, it’s easy.

It’s as easy as tapping words on a keyboard and it’s as hard as flensing your body of skin and exposing your soul to cutting winds and scouring rains.

And if it’s what you want to do, then you need to do it. No amount of mental calisthenics will excuse you from that act. Writing is so much more than moving a couch, but it still begins with there being a couch in your way and if you want it out of your way you either have to hope it magically decays on its own (it won’t) or you have to put your back into it and GRUNT WITH SURLY EFFORT as you move it out of your path.

*gnashes teeth*

*tugs angrily on beard*

*tugs angrily on nipples*

*thrashes about*

shut up

quit looking at me

don’t waste time responding to me how right I am or how wrong I am

GO

NOW

MAKE WITH THE WORDS

BARFSPACKLE YOUR STORY

MAKE / CREATE / DO

WRITE / REWRITE / WEEP / WAIL / REPAIR

ART HARDER, MOTHERFUCKER

…

And, I’m done.

*turns into seven lemurs, all of whom scatter to various boltholes*

* * *

The journey to become a successful writer is long, fraught with peril, and filled with difficult questions: How do I write dialogue? How do I build suspense? What should I know about query letters? How do I start? What the hell do I do?

The best way to answer these questions is to ditch your uncertainty and transform yourself into a Kick-Ass Writer. This new book from award-winning author Chuck Wendig combines the best of his eye-opening writing instruction — previously available in e-book form only — with all-new insights into writing and publishing. It’s an explosive broadside of gritty advice that will destroy your fears, clear the path, and help you find your voice, your story, and your audience.

Amazon

B&N

Indiebound

Writer’s Digest