What Writers, Military Training Have in Common

Motivating yourself can be difficult. So, how do you motivate yourself to be a professional, steady writer? My friend Melanie wrote about motivation a few days ago. It got me thinking about my military career and all the techniques used to motivate people to be better, more professional soldiers; and later, as a supervisor, how I motivated them. And now, how those apply as I motivate myself as a writer. A little background.

When you start the military, you are subject to 10-12 weeks of basic military training. In short, it’s a period of time the military takes to scrub a lot of crap out of you and attempt to make you into something it can use. It’s the foundation for a military life.

Most people have the image of a drill instructor three inches from their face screaming epithets at them, and that’s true. However, usually what’s screamed is activating something inside you. Vulgarities aside, the drill instructors are summoning you to be better than you were before you entered the military, and discovering the things that motivate you.

There’s also the notion of organization, attention to detail and discipline. Wake up, work and go to sleep at a certain time. Exercise to lose weight and build stamina. Make the beds a certain way. Fold the t-shirts a certain way. Correctly wear a uniform. Listen. Act. Rinse and repeat for 10-12 weeks.

Your fellow trainees are also part of that equation because if one fails, you all fail. Push-ups until bedtime, anyone? Soon, the group of 50 or so individuals becomes a team over time that learns to march, eat and swear together. It’s a fascinating transformation. In the end, a trainee has the capacity to live life as a peace-time and, with a bit more training, war-time soldier.

Eventually, the drill sergeant’s screaming stops because the team is succeeding and that sort of motivation is no longer required. The fire’s lit. Now it’s about sustaining the flame and exercising those mental and physical muscles. Besides, eventually everyone turns off a screamer. Drill sergeants know that, too. They want you to succeed. Screaming 24/7 won’t accomplish that.

Along the way, what motivates the trainee is the want to grow or be better. For some, it’s the want to serve their country. For others it’s pursuit of a college education. Others, it’s just to have a job. In any case, there’s a need to be filled. The military offers the opportunity to fill that need and the start of that process is fairly simple: tear something down, and then build it back up.

So, where does this apply to writing? Putting butt-in-chair, writing, editing, querying and so on is all goal-oriented behavior geared to enter a specific kind of society (the writing community) and live a unique way of life. So, basic military trainees and fledgling writers aren’t worlds apart. They need to be motivated to achieve their goals.

Wikipedia cites 26 references for its passage on motivation. It includes Professor Steven Reiss, who has written about “16 basic desires that guide all human behavior.” I’ll list them here and bold the ones I think make me want to write:

• Acceptance, the need for approval
• Curiosity, the need to learn
• Eating, the need for food
• Family, the need to raise children
• Honor, the need to be loyal to the traditional values of one’s clan/ethnic group
• Idealism, the need for social justice
• Independence, the need for individuality
• Order, the need for organized, stable, predictable environments
• Physical activity, the need for exercise
• Power, the need for influence of will
• Romance, the need for sex
• Saving, the need to collect
• Social contact, the need for friends (peer relationships)
• Status, the need for social standing/importance
• Tranquility, the need to be safe
• Vengeance, the need to strike back/to win

The challenge is discovering motivation to write, and letting it fuel you. If it’s just a hobby, then motivation will probably be low. If you have plenty of food, a warm house, good friends and acceptance … well, you get the idea. In the link up in the first paragraph, Mel talked about rejiggering the incentives she gives herself. Did it work? She finished a synopsis she’d been bogged down in just a day later.

There’s more to this, of course. For instance, in the same way that writers need to use specific words to form sentences, soldiers need to learn how to fire a weapon with accuracy. Writers follow directions from and interact with beta readers, editors, agents, publishers, and fans. Soldiers follow orders from commanders and noncommisioned officers, interact with peers and have the additional role of being scrutinized by the American taxpaying public and the rest of the world.

For writers, there may not be screaming along the way. Your push-ups may come in the form of writing exercises and classes. The bullets are verbs, nouns, antecedents and articles. The hills to be taken are the Books-A-Million bookshelves. Medals are royalty checks. And while there are significant differences, there are parallel lines that exist between the writing and military societies.

The writing starts the process, but you have to be motivated to do it. So, how do you motivate yourself? Where do you fall in Professor Reiss’ table of 16? Pick the ones that motivate you and let me know in the comments.

(Image credit/Department of Defense)

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