Motivate Your Writing!Aspiring and professional writers alike struggle to stay motivated; in the face of distractions, obligations, and procrastination, the desire to write often fails to become the act of writing. Motivated writers, notes the author, are those who have learned to identify their fundamental emotional drives and who have established a writing routine that satisfies those drives. Kelner draws on the research and insights of motivational psychology to show writers how to harness the energy of these fundamental motivators. With a degree in motivational psychology, Kelner applies not only his training in the field but also his own original research into the motivational patterns typical of writers. Depending on their motivational profile, different writers will respond best to different kinds of feedback and rewards and will function best in different kinds of environments. Kelner explains the basic drives of power, affiliation, and achievement; he shows how these drives are manifested in a wide variety of behaviors; and he provides self-assessment tools to construct your own motivational profile. In clear and accessible terms, and with numerous examples and anecdotes, Kelner shows writers how they can identify their own primary drives and use that knowledge to arrange their work habits and energize their writing lives. |
Contents
MOTIVATION | 1 |
Discovering Motives Using Reality Testing | 7 |
Identifying Your Own Motives | 11 |
Attribution Theory | 13 |
DEALING WITH WRITERS BLOCK | 19 |
DEALING WITH WRITERS BLOCK | 26 |
HEREDITY | 35 |
19 | 38 |
Motivate Your Selling | 131 |
OTHER PEOPLE | 156 |
Workshops | 170 |
When You Are Not Writing | 188 |
29 | 191 |
Changing Your Motives | 195 |
31 | 201 |
Discovering Your Motives Using the Picture Story Exercise | 207 |
GOAL SETTING | 97 |
18 | 106 |
THE PROCESS OF WRITING | 113 |
Steps in the Writing Process | 119 |
Case Studies | 214 |
Sample Development Plans | 220 |
DEALING WITH WRITERS BLOCK | 223 |
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Common terms and phrases
ability Achievement Motive action Affiliation Motive Agatha Christie agent Alfred Bester apply arouse audience Beethovenian behavior better block challenge craft creative criticism David McClelland described draft editing editor emotional enjoy example external failure feedback feel finished focus Fran Lebowitz Fredric Brown friends genre goal setting happen Harlan Ellison Heinlein idea identify impact influence Isaac Asimov keep kind Kurt Vonnegut least look manage means monomyth Mozartian mystery writer negative never nonfiction novel obstacles Option plot positive Power Motive problem-solving model prose published writers reason rejection Remember rewriting Rex Stout Robert Robert Silverberg scene science fiction sell short story someone specific Stephen King success task tell tend things thought values want to write words workshop writ writer's block Writer's Digest Writers on Writing writing process wrote