Mastery of Your Craft (Thoughts & Ideas)

I just read something that made me stop and think. It was just 4 sentences on a website that is buried in a sea of more useful sites, but it was about motivation. One of those sentences mentioned that motivation is partially driven by our belief that we are constantly improving. Think about that for a second. It isn’t even the act of improving that keeps us doing what we love, but simply the belief that we are.

I can point out a dozen people I know who are terrible at something they are passionate about, yet they keep telling me how much better they’ve gotten. They are driven by a mastery of their craft, even if it’s imagined. We can apply that to our lives as well.

You see, since my debut novel released, I’ve felt like I’m hitting my head against a wall trying to write my next piece. I’ve lost all motivation to continue the series I started. It helps that people keep telling me how much they want to read the second book, but it isn’t enough to keep my head in that world for long. But I am motivated to write about a particular superhero I’ve created. A superhero whose adventures are aimed at a much younger audience.

While I’m sure that I’m improving at writing in general (I don’t believe we ever truly stop), it doesn’t feel like I’m improving at the storytelling aspect of that world. I do feel like I’m improving at YA fiction though, because it’s such a new side to writing for me. I’m sure if I sat down and worked on Horror or Romance, I’d improve drastically at those new avenues as well. They’re things that I’m not confident in doing yet.

And that’s the key. If I’m to truly buckle down and finish book 2 of my trilogy, I need to feel like I’m improving as I write it. I need to do something new and exciting with it. I’m not sure what that will be just yet, but I now understand why I’m having so much trouble.

This applies to anything we do. Do you find it hard to motivate yourself to mow the lawn? Try making shapes and patterns in the grass before you even it out. Need to pump yourself up about working the register at Wal-Mart? Try bagging the customers’ groceries in a different way (all cold together, alphabetically, etc.). Give yourself something new to improve upon. Eventually you will find yourself going back to your original method, but by then you’ll be a bit rusty and need to improve again.