First Published: 2025 March 26
I do really love a good metanarrative, and this blog post might be a good example of one. I was1 wondering why I have not been writing my web novel. I thought that I would2 have the time, energy, and motivation to write another draft yesterday. Instead, 13 hours after leaving home for work, I returned. Everything that I planned to do at home last night took longer than I had assumed it would, and as a result I did not end up writing my chapter.
I forget who initially told me this, but someone once told me that there’s no such thing as free time. That is, anything that I do has to come at the expense of something else that I am otherwise doing.
Somewhere else, I’ve seen that I need to have some amount of my time as rest. For a while, I think that the novel was a form of rest for me, but it absolutely stopped being one by the time that I stopped writing it.
With both of these in mind, it’s obvious to me that I have been less able to do things lately than I was before.3 If I want to be better about extending grace to myself, I need to make this a question stemming from curiosity, not judgement.4
So, let’s go through the reasons that I might write a web novel, and see how motivating they are to me right now.5
In general, I would love if more of the things that I did were autotelic.6 Actually, I don’t know if that’s true. Some use autotelic to mean that a task is undertaken without external goals, and is therefore motivated by the thing itself. It gets to intrinsic and instrumental motivations.
Do I have intrinsic motivation to write?
Broader, do I have intrinsic motivations?
Even broader, is it better for me to have intrinsic motivations?
I guess things which are good in themselves are considered intrinsic motivations. I more and more realize that I think that I subscribe to a version of Divine Command Theory, which means that good is itself an extrinsically defined thing. However, since I also think that goodness is a moral constant, I suppose that practically speaking I can treat things that I do because I believe that they are Divinely ordained as good, and therefore intrinsically valuable. I’ll even go the step further and say that I’m going to use intrinsically motivating as good in itself, where good means I think that it, on the whole, helps to bring the world towards G-d.
Ok, diversion aside, let’s say that an autotelic action is an action I undertake without the explicit or implied belief that I will have an extrinsic benefit from doing it. For me, working out is not an autotelic action, because I exercise to stay in shape. Practicing my guitar is not autotelic, because I do so to be better at guitar. Jamming with a friend is an autotelic action, because the jamming is the goal.7
This helps me think about the book. What would it mean for me to be writing the book as its own end? I think that it would mean that I’m writing it to figure out where the story leads me.8 That is certainly a motivation I have. The initial premise for the book had the main character becoming a terrorist in the final book.9 I’m less and less sure how that will happen given the way that the story is playing out right now. In short, I think that there is at least a small part of me that wrote the book and would continue writing the book for its own sake.
Is writing the book a way for me to hone my writing skills? If so, then the motivation to write the book becomes10 my motivation for improving my writing skills and my belief that writing the book improves my writing skills. Writing skills are not a monolith, however, and so I should really clarify what it means to improve at writing, at least insomuch as it relates to the book.
I believe that the primary ways the book helps me improve as a writer are that it teaches me to work on a deadline,11 it teaches me to write faster,12, it helps me with considering a long narrative and pacing therein13, and it helps me to understand the general human experience.14
How motivated I am to improve in each of those regards is, as far as I can think of it, a function of how motivated I am to be good at the skill, how good at the skill I currently am, and the rate of progress that I think I will have in improving in the skill.15 This means that my overall motivation for writing the book to improve myself is the sum of the motivations to improve each skill multiplied16 with the likelihood that I will improve that skill by writing It can be better broken down into the sum of how quickly I think that writing the book will help me with a given skill multiplied by how motivated I am to be good at the skill, divided17 by the skill I think that I have, or:
M(Write) = ∏ M(Be good at skill) P(Writing will improve the Skill) E(Speed of improvement by writing)
Where M is the motivation overall, P is the probability, and E is the expectation value, which is itself a function of how easily I train the skill, how good the skill already is, how hard it is to train, and what it means to improve. In general, right now I do think that I am, at least consciously18 very motivated to improve at writing. I think that writing the book will absolutely help me with keeping to deadlines, writing quickly, and understanding the human experience. I think that it will be neutral to slightly negative towards my ability to write in the scientific tone, but it might be positive at helping me to develop a specific register for writing, in such a way that I can then change it.
Ok, so the overall motivation appears positive in both regards, and I assume that if I have two positive motivations that they will add. Let’s hope that this will continue to be true, and all reasons I once wrote the book are positive motivators.
The next reason I had to consider was that I was motivated by the idea of making money. That’s really a few motivations hiding in a trench coat and pretending to be the same: the amount that money itself is a motivator, the amount that money is a decent stand-in for how much the external world values something, and the fact that one of the initial reasons I began to publish the book was my belief that I could write something better than the authors who make a lot on the platform. Money itself is not really a motivator for me, I more and more realize. Money as a stand-in for value is something that motivates me decently well, though not much better than anything that money can be exchanged for (pizza, ice cream, a medal).19 Given that the majority of my readers are faceless entities leaving comments on a faceless book, money is really the only way for them to show value. I don’t think that I’m really motivated by the idea that other20 authors are making more, because I’ve seen a number of what I consider really well written books also not have a significant monetary value associated on the website, and I’ve seen how much work the authors who turn major profits put into the business side of the writing.
A part of me also worries that being paid to write will make me want to write it less and/or value the book less. Given that I’ve made absolutely no steps towards monetizing the book, I don’t think that’s a motivation I should take into account. Comments are about as meaningful to me as I think that money would be, though there is the secondary point that something people spend money on is something that they’re more likely to recommend to a friend, which would increase my number of comments. All in all, though, I guess that I have to say possibility of monetization is probably just about zero as far as motivations go.
The next motivation I wanted to explore was the fact that I do things in order to prove21 that I can. I think that I have effectively proven that I can write a web novel while doing a Ph.D., and I’ve proven that I can write something that others want to read. However, I haven’t proven that I can finish a story or tell a narrative that ends in a way that people like.22 There is also the above portion of my motivation to prove that I can write something that others would pay for, but, as discussed, that’s relatively minor, especially since I’ve had comments saying that people are actively looking for a way to pay me. All in all, I’ll say the part of me that refuses to accept limits is a minor motivation at best.
My motivation to write something that my sibling enjoys is not something I’ve considered for a bit. Given the group chat I had with other friends who enjoyed commenting on the book as each new chapter released, I should probably extend it a little further. They all have other things to read which they enjoy, so I don’t really feel like I’m depriving them of much. Then again, I do also love when people like things that I made.23
And finally, a friend asked me how motivated I was to write the thing because I enjoyed it. That feels like a tough question, and was part of my question for an autotelic action. Does doing something because I think that I’ll enjoy it make it not autotelic? Great question, and one I’ve just reached out to a philosopher friend of mine about.
Ok, so all in all, I do have a fair amount of motivation to start writing the book. I do really believe that on some level the thing that was keeping me from writing was the fact that I didn’t have an explicit reason to point to for why I would. I have that now!
Now comes the hard question: how do I start writing it? I have been and plan to continue to be very busy at work. However, breaks are important, or so I’m told. I do often find that I stick myself into a rut while working, and forcing myself to take breaks is at least one way of confronting that part of me.
How often do I want to publish, how much do I want to be able to revise, how much will I revise, how long will each chapter be, how much of a backlog do I want to start with are all other questions. Let’s answer them now. I want to publish at least once a week, and ideally three times a week again, because I love a MWF release schedule. I would ideally like to be at least 10 chapters ahead so that I can hopefully avoid writing myself into a corner re: making a choice that has bad consequences in three more chapters. I don’t really think that I’ll revise much, in part because I don’t care that much about eking out every possible shred of skill into the book, and in part because a goal is to get better at quickly writing decent text. I want each chapter to be in the 2000 to 2500 word range, but will accept if they are again in the 1800 to 2200 range. I want to start with a ten chapter backlog, because that gives me the revision ability that I had hoped for.
How do I get the next twenty five thousand24 words written? I set up time and space to do so. In general, I think that I can and probably should start setting time aside on Sundays again for personal growth related activities. They, like swimming or most things in my life, make every day slightly harder but in return make every day markedly easier.25
I’m a few weeks behind on keeping up with the living goals, but here it is!
N.B. I’ve decided to have the whole list of goals that I have for the month at the bottom of each posting, and I’ll delete entries as is relevant. That way I can track everything each day!
Professional:
Thesis Work:
Work on the research within the thesis! Working!
Be a better mentor: figure out how to take time to help underclassmen as they need help while still getting my own work done. Figured that out!
Leave work at work. I’ve set boundaries, am following them, and it’s working!
Work towards future career:
Read the recommended readings about science communication.
Do the reflections that were recommended to me (mostly focused around why I care about science communication)
Work on the materials for the science outreach event in April: the handout while they work and a page for the families to take home. Done! I think.
Figure out the difference between my public-facing and field-facing presentation affects. As I focus on becoming a better presenter, I need to become aware of the difference and how to switch them
Need to look for jobs
Health:
Spiritual:
Do the Lenten goals. Haven’t been great about this one. Was doing ok at not listening to things constantly but then had a rough few days and found a new series.
Be intentional about prayer. That means both making time for prayer and actually doing it. Whoops.
Mental:
Clean my Life:
Remove dirt and clutter from physical spaces (standard definition of clean). Doing better!
Spend time each day thinking about the goals for the day, and getting them out of my head and onto the page. Haven’t been doing great at, am slowly improving though! Need to find the optimal way that isn’t effortful
Start reading and returning the library books I have. Nope!
Don’t waste time, and in particular, be mindful about making sure to take breaks and rest. Kind of! Wasting time is somewhat happening
Clean sight lines. Is my space set up in a way that orients me towards my goals for the space? If not, how can I make it so? Darn curse of entropy.
Interpersonal Relationships:
Figure out what belongs in a normal letter to a friend.
Get back into writing letters.
Upon feeling a sense of dread at receiving a message from someone, remember that my lived experience says that most interactions are positive. More to the point, if my friends didn’t like me, they would tell me or at the very least would not continue to keep me in their life. If alone, speak something to that effect. I’ve been doing this! It works wonders
Work to begin messaging friends.
Potentially start giving small gifts, though many people also dislike clutter, so think carefully about that one. Have started giving friends things as I have them, and they’re well received. Thoughtfulness is the key.
Physical:
Go to group fitness classes more regularly and more often. Doing! Will keep though.
Feed myself simply and healthily. Mostly doing! Will keep
Other:
Music:
Figure out something to work towards on guitar. Done! A friend asked me to play at his wedding, so will need to be good for that.
Work towards it
Spend time making efforts to improve as a singer, not simply passively singing. I’m getting rid of this goal because I no longer really have it.
Spend time making efforts to improve as a musician, not simply passively growing. see above.
Writing:
Find the mental block towards writing my web novel. Wow! Look at this!
Write poetry more often, ideally nightly. Uhhhhhh nope, should restart though.
Not only write blogs, but also post them. Ideas include:26
26 for 26
Listening to an album and writing about my experience with it. Unsure if this is best done with one I have prior knowledge of or a new one, but regardless, sit and listen without other stimuli. One of my lab mates and I have been exchanging albums, so this could be fun
The arts I’ve been doing lately
Why I care about science and communicating it
the block between me and my web novel
My general disposition to authority. I’m not entirely sure what that meant, but it was a note I wrote to myself while half asleep, so I’ll leave it here.
How to feed myself.
Motivation, autotelic motivation, etc. etc.
The idea I have that knowledge (music, writing, science, etc.) is revealed, never gained (hard to express, meaning a great choice)
Understanding the human experience, esp. re. writing
Doing the work to improve myself and time discount
My writing style(s) and what they show
The four levels of mastery
A fiction: story told through bullet points
A short film: watching the screen as a breakup letter is written
“the only way out is through, and the only way through is forward”
Internal and External Arguments within and without27
Curse of knowledge, esp re. Music Theory
What does it mean to succeed at a creation? (reception, viewership, etc.)
Inertia (re: my mind sticking to the thought patterns I have at a moment)
I keep musing within my musings about why it is that I’m not doing my web serial right now. I have a few reasons that have seemed plausible, and so I’m going to explore them as well as anything else that comes up as I muse today. I’ve been very into structuring documents lately28, but I want this to be less structured, if only to force myself out of the happy little boxes that I’m putting myself into.29
The first and most obvious reason an external observer might have for me no longer keeping up with the book30 is the same reason that most people have expressed shock that I was writing a web serial at all: a graduate degree is intense and31 all consuming. Especially now that I’m in the thesis writing stage, I really should32 be spending a lot of my mental and physical writing space33, if not all of iton the thesis. However, I stopped writing the serial well before I started writing the thesis in earnest, and I was, in fact, able to write it while in a doctoral program, so that can’t be all of it. Whether it’s an actual reason or a convenient excuse I’m using is definitely up for debate, and I’m sure we’ll come back to this in time.
The second reason34 that an external observer might use is the death of my mother this past October. Technically speaking, I stopped writing before October35, so that’s not explicitly timeline accurate. Of course, my mother was actively dying in late August, and had been in the hospital for a while before that, when it wasn’t clear if she was going to recover.
The death of my mother does tie neatly into the comment from the first reason: time. Not only was I grieving the loss of one of the pillars of my life, I am36 playing catch up, or at least feel like I’m playing catch up for the time that I was less than productive while actively dealing with her dying. Even outside of time, grief is absolutely something that has taken up a lot of my mental space and time. Something that countless authors have spoken37 about is the way that grief is almost all consuming at first.
The death of my mother also directly affects the novel for a really key reason that I’m not sure the average external reader would know: she was one of the main reasons that I wrote it. There was a solid month or so that I had to force myself to write each chapter, beginning with typing “the only way out is through, and the only way through is forward. This is something you can do to notably improve your mother’s experience as she deals with her cancer”, deleting it, and then writing the words to the book. When it became clear that she was not, in fact, reading it or likely to be able to read it again, that baseline reason disappeared from the logic. Given that it was, at least allegedly, the sole thing that got me writing for at least a month, the loss of the reason is definitely a big part of the loss of motivation. I think that I had forgotten or blocked out the fact that I used her cancer as an explicit reason to write the book.
Obviously, this ties to another barrier to writing: I associate the book with her and it’s painful to do things that I associate with her, knowing both that I am no longer able to connect with her about them and, maybe more importantly38, that the more I do them without her, the less I’ll associate the actions with her. That’s not just me fearmongering, it’s, as best as I understand it, the state of the field in psychology and neurology. Part of me was, and probably still is,39 grasping tightly onto anything that I have that still reminds me of her. Looking at the blank text file where the book once was, or seeing the drafts that are still unwritten, though painful, also makes me immediately think about her. Grasping tightly is never healthy, though, and I think that I’m finally starting to loosen up my grip.40
I also have the general wall of starting anything.41 I’ve taken enough time off of writing that restarting the book is just that, starting again.
Part of me is worried that fans will suddenly hate the way that the book is written.
Part of me knows that so much of the book was written with the general love for life and optimism that I have had for most of my life. I’m beyond terrified at the idea that this optimism, which I have internally as such a key part of my identity, might no longer exist. I also worry that the writing will become darker, and therefore ruin the style that I’ve worked towards.
Part of me knows that the book is, to put it mildly, unique in the writing style. I’ve continued to read about writing style and how to structure prose, and I think that there’s the internal argument within me42 between adapting my writing style, and therefore the book, into something more mainstream, the part of me that wants to lean into the uniqueness, and the part of me that wants to not think about the style as I write. Writing that sentence, I know that it’s the exact same issue I have always had with poetry and music.
More than that, though, it’s the same argument that so many pop-adjacent43 musicians use for not learning theory. They have a unique sound and don’t want to force themselves into the box that learning theory will do. I always decry this argument as nonsense, because learning new tools is never a bad thing.
However, there is absolutely something to be said about the rubik’s cube dilemma.44 That is, once you know how to solve a rubik’s cube, there’s no way to go back and try to derive how to solve it yourself. Or, rather, knowledge changes the way that we see the world.
I know this is true, and have commented on it a lot. There is even a name for this, the curse of knowledge.45 In music, I feel like I’ve never thought of it as a curse.
Because music is such a universal human behavior, there are countless thinkers46 who have put forth their reasons for why the curse of knowledge doesn’t apply to songwriting. In short, the idea tends to be that we all listen to so much music, and our brains are so hard wired to find patterns, that we have internalized most musical rules. Education simply lets us make the choices conscious, rather than unconscious.47 There’s also the secondary point that I don’t see a lot of people talk about, which is that most people, especially today, learned their instruments from some sort of system that derives on some level from the academy.48 I guess that I’m growing a little less sure of the position that knowledge is not a curse when it comes to finding a voice.
There’s the related but completely independent argument that much creative expression is not solely about using our own voice, but also about sharing it with someone else. If the consumer does not take in what you are trying to convey, were you successful in expression? Even deeper, if the consumer doesn’t consume the product because it’s so off putting to them, were you successful at expressing yourself? In some regards, this ties to the question of why I am writing the web novel.
Is it something autotelic49? Is it, as I’ve mentioned before, a way for me to practice and hone my writing skills? Is it, as I’ve thought about before, something I do with hopes of one day turning a profit? Is it about demonstrating that I can do whatever I set myself to, believing that I am unlimited?50 Is it, as the initial drafts were, about writing something for my older sibling to read? From a friend, is it something that I do because it’s pleasurable?
This feels like a good place to stop the reflection for now, return to work51, and come back to this later.
and am, I suppose↩
wow three I statements in a row↩
see: grief is a huge obligation↩
which, eh we’ll see if I’m ever able to do↩
I was about to make a list but then I realized that I said I wouldn’t last version↩
hmm, is that true? I suppose that I want everything that I do to be for the greater glory of G-d, and I want that to be my main motivation. If I assume that I have that motivation and that the actions I take are doing so, then an action is as though autotelic↩
or, making music is an end in itself to me.↩
I also more and more realize that I believe in some weird potentially inherently heretical metaphysics where knowledge, song, and story all exist external to humanity and we receive revelation which lets us see them, if only for a moment. I should really expound on that sometime↩
or at least a revolutionary↩
I’m working with probabilities right now, so that’s where my mind is at with separating things out↩
relevant for the thesis drafts↩
always something that I want↩
wow, really relevant to the thesis↩
which is not, in fact, a writing skill, but is a motivation that I should explore on its own↩
Wow I really think entirely in the mode that I last used my brain. Yesterday I tried to learn probabilities, and now all I can do is think about probabilities↩
for some really arbitrary definition of multiply. Convolved? Functioned? Idk↩
again, for some arbitrary meaning thereof↩
there’s such a ripe series of musings for me to do about what it means to fight your subconscious. I.e. if there’s something you aren’t doing, there’s clearly some part of you that doesn’t want to do it. There’s a saying I see that people can lie with everything but their habits, which might be relevant here↩
I have commented a number of times that, much as I love receiving awards and medals, I hate having them (hate might be a strong word, dislike? do not like? hmm) after the fact. My motivation to win is entirely on getting a thing, not having a thing↩
potentially worse↩
side note: to who??↩
the one thing I published on the site has a fair number of angry comments on the last chapter because I spent the entirety of the book on a few days and then sped through the next two decades.↩
There’s a meme that goes around where someone says something like “when looking at your art, think of it as a cake at a party. People don’t go ‘wow this cake isn’t as good as this other cake’, they go ‘wow! two cakes!’” which feels somewhat relevant here↩
wow what a big number↩
which is such a horrible thing to realize, because it really shows me how quickly my discount function takes effect when I’m in the day to day. Framing it as a time discount might help me going forward, though (another idea!)↩
as a living list!↩
what’s the term for not just within?↩
unsurprisingly, given that I’m setting up and writing my dissertation right now↩
read: no lists or subsections today↩
I don’t know why I am so opposed to listing the title or even the shortened version I tend to use↩
in theory at least↩
should is a word that is apparently problematic for a lot of people↩
the best part about being in physics is that now I can use space and time interchangeably and justify it with spacetime being a thing↩
I know I said destructuring, but I also need the reader to understand that writing paragraphs that are text numbered feels completely free form to me at this point. The more I’m doing with planning, the more I feel like a bunch of nested bulleted lists tends to be the ideal way to write (side note: maybe explore that as a fiction idea?)↩
the 28th of August is when I posted that I was going on hiatus. Oof↩
I don’t know why I’m using past tense, and much as I hate intra-sentence tense disagreement, I think that it stylistically works here. Readers are of course free to disagree↩
written?↩
for all that I’m just now coming to the realization↩
deciding what belongs in text and what belongs in footnotes is really hard when the entire thing is me reflecting and musing on emotions and what’s in my mind explicitly↩
I listened to the audiobooks for the first series we ever read together (rather than like as a mother reading to a child). It was really hard, and I think that I actively like the books less now for having done so. Then again, I did do that in November, so the grief was without a doubt far rawer then↩
how’s that for a smooth transition↩
that’s redundant, but I do also feel like I have internal arguments outside of me and external arguments within me, maybe↩
I don’t know what else to call it. I’m using popular here in the musicological sense, which is non-academy and (these days generally) non sacred. That isn’t to say pop the genre as labels define it, just music that people do independent of the academy↩
I know it has an actual name, but my little sibling is or was trying to solve a rubik’s cube without any help↩
see this comic for a humorous example↩
from the academy, of course↩
then we get to that whole “four levels of mastery” thing that I find so intuitive and that no one else seems to use↩
of course, music being so intertwined with culture means that like the blues, which was famously initially something completely independent from the academy, is now a staple of the knowledge the academy can give you (why the blues progression is what it is and how to quickly vary it)↩
new word I learned meaning something done for its own sake↩
something that an expert tells me is that I have an internal worldview that believes that I am unlimited, and so therefore am hard on myself when, as it turns out, I am not↩
ah the first point returns↩