Shtick At It!

This is Staying Motivated Week in Blaugust and I'm motivated to use it as an excuse not to come up with any original ideas of my own for today's post. It'll take some thinking about anyway, though, because motivation isn't generally a problem for me, at least not when it comes to blogging.

Most days, all I need for motivation is the pleasure of listening to the sound of my own voice. It feels like I've seen an unusual amount of blogging-about-blogging this year, even for Blaugust, an event that specializes in that kind of introspection. A number of bloggers have even touched on the troubling issue of whether they have anything to say - or at least anything anyone wants to hear. 

That's never really been much of a problem for me, even if I do sometimes drop in a would-be smart remark about some post or other being nothing anyone's going to want to read. If I really believed that I certainly wouldn't have hit Publish on the post in question. It's all just part of the shtick.

Ah, the shtick! It's different to the voice all those writing coaches and courses and How-To guides hold up as the endgame for writers. The voice is the true you. Your shtick is... well, what is it?

It's a bunch of tics and mannerisms, all bundled up in some catch-phrases and signature tropes, to make some kind of easily-recognizable gestalt identity you can crouch down inside and work with your hands as if its a real person. It's a mask and a cloak and a soft shoe shuffle. It's two kids in a trench-coat, trying to get in to the cinema to see The Creature from the Black Lagoon - or rather it's dropping that peculiar image in as though you expect everyone to know what you're on about.

Or in my case, at least, it's apparently a whole lot of ill-judged similes all crowding together to simulate a metaphor that doesn't entirely come off. Or partially, for that matter. Also the use of a lot of unnecessary qualifying adverbs that really aren't adding any substance.

Wait, though...

What does any of that have to do with motivation? 

I'm so glad you asked!

(Having conversations with yourself in print. There's another...)

Here's what. It's fun. And that's the motivation that works best for me. Having fun. Quite specifically, having fun writing. 

This is the thing. I like writing. I like it a lot. I should. I've been doing it for a long, long time. If I didn't like it, what would that make me?

When I was a child, one of the first things I can remember wanting to do was learn to read. And I wanted to learn to read so I could read books and comics for myself and not have to wait for someone else to do it for me. 

Once I had it down, I started reading for fun and never stopped. And very soon after reading for fun came writing for fun because once you can read, why wouldn't you want to write?

That was about sixty years ago. I was a slightly late starter with reading because my mother specifically didn't want me to learn before I went to school so I wouldn't be out of step with everyone else. And in those days, few kids started school before they were five years old so that's how long I had to wait.

I've told that story before (And better.) right here on the blog. I'll throw this in free as an extra motivational aside - no-one is going to remember. 

I wouldn't worry about repeating yourself, something else I've seen come up this year as a de-motivating factor. Everyone repeats themselves. I also wouldn't worry about anyone remembering anything you've written, not unless it was last week. And honestly? Probably not even then. No-one ever does.

Except, of course, that one person who quotes you, almost verbatim, from memory, years and years later, when the subject comes up again, bringing up something you said that you've long forgotten but they never have. That's happened to me a surprising number of times and its always both highly flattering and deeply disturbing. 

You mean someone was actually paying attention? Geez! That's amazing! But also terrifying...

And so rare. I wouldn't worry about it. I've written literally millions of words and exposed them to public scrutiny and I guess it's happened to me at most a dozen times. Mostly you can easily get away with rehashing the same opinions and even the same anecdotes so long as you aren't too blatant about it. And anyway, you can always turn the fact that you know you've said it before into a feature of the story, like I just did then.

So, to recap: motivation = fun + self-confidence. Write because you enjoy writing and don't assume anyone is paying close attention.

Hang on... wasn't there something about a "shtick"?

Why, yes, I do believe there was. That comes under the "Fun" umbrella. 

How do you make sure the process of writing is fun? I keep hearing people saying they enjoy "having written" but that they don't like the writing process itself. Writing is hard, they say. Or hell, in the extreme cases. 

Which is fair enough. It can be. I mean, I'm not here to tell you I had fun writing my dissertation on William Blake back in University.  I most certainly did not. It wasn't even fun when I'd finished. It's only in my mind because I came across it in a box in the loft yesterday, when I was up there looking for some other things I'd written almost as long ago. Things I really did have fun writing. 

So, yes, not all writing is fun. But blogging should be. I mean, if not, what the heck are you doing it for? Go and do something you enjoy instead. This isn't school! 

If you kind of enjoy it but not always or not enough, having a shtick is one way to make it funner.

That's a fragment of the shtick right there, that "funner". I know and you know that "funner" isn't a word but I know that you know that I know, so I feel free to use it anyway. Better yet, I know that you know what it means, even though it's not a real word. And because we both know, then it is a real word, isn't it?

I also know that just seeing it in print is going to make someone shake their fist and go "Grrr!" and that's all part of the fun, too. (Oh, sure, it's all fun until someone loses an eye, isn't it? Or forgets to dot one.)

A lot of my favorite bloggers have shticks. Also prose styles and voices, which are like the shtick's grown-up, better-educated, better-behaved siblings. Those are the blogs I look forward to reading, whatever the posts are about.

Okay, not whatever. There are some topics so abstruse or niche or just plain dry that no amount of shtick or style can make them fun to read. But mostly, if it feels like the writer was having fun, it'll be fun to read. (I'd caveat that with the ifs and buts it deserves but I'm trying not to spoil the mood here...) 

The point ((Oh, he's got a point! We were wondering!) (And that didn't really work, did it? Not sure that routine ever does but I will keep on using it anyway. Sometimes a shtick starts using the writer rather than the way round it ought to be.)) 

Ahem. Going to start that sentence again. It got over-parenthesized and the end fell off.  

The point is that a shtick, unlike a prose style or a voice, is overtly performative, which means you, the writer, are performing as you write. And that's where the fun comes in.

It's the blogging equivalent of putting on your favorite song, grabbing the dog by the front paws and waltzing her around the living room. Not that I'd ever do that. Except when the music stops, instead of an over-excited dog and some knocked-over furniture, you have a blog post.

And there's your day's work done. Edit for sense, stick in some pictures, if that's your thing (It's mine, it isn't everyone's.) think of a title and hit Publish. Presto, Blaugust honor satisfied. 

Until tomorrow, when you get to do it all over again.

Always assuming you can wait that long. 

I mean, now you're having so much fun...

 

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