Pitfall Motivation

Effectively Motivating Writers on Medium

Let’s work on it!

Author’s puppy Huck who is also featured in this story

First, huge props to Philip Ogley for his inspirational comment after one of my comments on one of his many captivating stories.

The Agony and the Anxiety: Waiting for Short Story Competition Results

The following is Philip’s real-life inspiring quote.

“Get Writing! I signed up for your posts, but you last wrote something in March. Let’s work on it!”

Awesome, right?

Up until that moment, I only followed Philip’s stories on Medium as they were the light in my otherwise mundane life I’m currently living. I find his writing incredibly interesting, and full of fascinating insights. He is also the only writer I follow who admits to drinking beer, has had over 100 jobs in his lifetime because he values his life journey more than being managed, enjoys being a groundsman on a small patch while living in a French village, and self-published several novels which he only occasionally exploits in any of his articles. Oh yeah, he runs for the sole purpose of running and likes coffee shops and camping. My man has range and will write about anything.

The full disclaimer is that I purchased one of his books on Amazon but only because I got free shipping and the cover photo is really neat.

A Man In France

Just imagine how I felt when this writing rock star shared his comments with me about getting back to writing. It inspired me to start questioning why I haven’t been writing for months. Then I considered, What Would Philip Do, or WWPD?

Knowing that Philip loves listicles, I created the following 6 reasons why I’m not writing. I completely acknowledge that I’m playing the victim card here but acknowledging this is important to my recovery for understanding why I’m not writing. I also agree that it is odd that number 1 on the below list relates to my addiction to Philip’s writing as a reason for my lack of production but I in no way blame him for his greatness.

1. Honestly, anyone who follows Philip’s stories knows the impact of his insightful writing on their lives. I relate this to a dopamine addiction! Each morning begins with a cup of drip coffee, plain black as that’s how I imagine Philip would drink his coffee (or does he prefer tea since he’s bloody English). I then find a comfortable chair where I sit to read Medium stories. If I’m lucky, there will be one or sometimes two stories from Philip in my queue of writers who I follow. I typically sit for hours after reading his stories pondering their deep meaning and how the message impacts my life. I follow each by digging deep for an insightful comment in hopes of getting a clap or better, a subsequent comment from Philip. This meaningful part of my day has become a time crunch, squeezing precious hours out of the day when I could be writing my own stories.
2. My job and associated stress helping stockholders have greater returns on their investments eats into the mental space I’d normally give to writing. Yes, my job is a life suck. A place in life that is completely unaligned with my current life goals and something that needs to change soon so I can resume my part-time career as a struggling writer. By the way, I also paint but struggle even more with that.
3. My wife and I said goodbye to our dog companion of 14 years in February and publicly proclaimed to anyone who listened that we would not have a pet for at least 2 years. In less than 2 months we found Huck, a rescue we refer to as a Special Edition Chocolate Golden Retriever. For those needing to be impressed by a dog breed, we sometimes tell others his breed is a Chien Brun. Having a new puppy requires endless hours of puppy training and attention so he won’t eat the couch or poop on the rug. To date, he hasn’t destroyed any furniture and he’s only pooped inside twice. The first was a friend’s house on their hardwood floor which I find to be good form and another friend’s shag carpet. The shag carpet also makes sense as who wouldn’t want to poop on a shag carpet. But I still haven’t written a story since March.
4. Learning to play Dueling Banjos on the banjo takes way more time than expected, especially when deploying the Scruggs-3 finger-picking style for the first time. I purchased the banjo back in November 2023 as something to occupy my time through the short days of winter in the Colorado Rockies. I have romanticized about being a musician all my life but was gifted zero musical talent. By the way, my wife hates me playing banjo and that I only know one song, but Huck likes it.
5. I struggle with focus and need quiet space to write. My wife, who is aware of this finds it necessary to interrupt my creative process to ask me to tell her what I was writing about. Her perfectly timed question is usually delivered just when I’m in the middle of a stream of thought. If interrupting me during my writing were an Olympic sport, then she’d be the gold medalist. Her skill and precision typically prevent any chance of me writing a quality story. Except today as I’m sitting in a hotel room in the mid-west while on a soul-sucking business trip to help improve stockholder investments. PS — my counter move is telling her that I am reading Philip’s stories which bores her so she now leaves me alone.
6. Finally, my Grammerly account has logged me out, and even after several password resets, now requires a phone call with customer service. This also makes me want to poop and leaves me without unnecessary commas.

So what do I do with Philip’s motivating comments and my need to start writing again? Do I just sit down and start writing without inspiration or just brain dump words on the page like I am doing now while sitting in the center seat of a flight to Cincinnati Ohio?

With great thought and wanting to please Philip, I offer the following 4 item listicle of ideas for stories that I could write about.

1. A dog trainer named Betty Beagle lives up in the boondocks of Alaska. She specializes in training a range of dog breeds from sled dogs to house pets. She’s kind of a legend in the area with stories from locals about her once training a brown bear to sit for blackberries. She shows up to our remote cabin wearing dirt-stained worn khaki Carhart overalls buttoned over a flannel shirt, hiking boots, and wire-rim eyeglasses. She’s a weathered-looking woman both in her appearance as well as her delivery. We both initially thought she had a speech impediment until we realized she was hoarding a mouth full of Lit’l Smokey sausages in both cheeks, much like a wad of tobacco but on both sides. At first, this seemed odd until we realized as she interacted with our dog that these were training treats. She trains and feeds dogs by removing a small sausage from her gums with her index finger and thumb, then delivers it to the pooch when it does the correct behavior. She insists that she never feeds her dogs from a bowl as it is just not effective. Ask a wolf.
2. My recent 6-day kayak trip off the coast of Vancouver Island in BC Canada. This trip was marked as an expedition-style event, required 2 days just to get to the fishing village where a water taxi shuttled us another 90 minutes to an island just off the Pacific coast. From there I camped and paddled through rain, and significant ocean swells, shared our tent with banana slugs, pooped in cat holes on the beach, had nightly visits from sea wolves, and black bears all while marveling at the remoteness of the area. This place is a rainforest that meets the Pacific Ocean and beauty that includes the silence from all technology, except the guides VHS radio that kept us up to date on weather and access to emergency help if needed. The most interesting personality was a lone traveler on our team from Norway. We learned there was a reason she was alone. Some people just aren’t likeable no matter how hard you try to like them. Never did anyone have the opportunity to ask her about all the things she felt the need to tell everyone, the least of which was a constant banter of how much better everything in Norway is… Exhausting, and there were times I mentally requested bears, sea wolves, and large ocean waves to just take me from her constant noise. My storyline is based on the complexity of this adventure along with a member unliked by all could make a great crime mystery story. A real Who Done It.
3. Ever heard of Backward Magical Contagion or BMC? I didn’t until I recently read about a study of its effectiveness in helping anger and sorrow from a situation. BMC is the positive emotional results one feels when they write what is bothering them on a piece of paper and then tear it up. Mostly associated with the end of a romantic relationship. The story is about 2 trail runners, running deep in the mountains and happen upon a box of broken bathroom tiles. Many shattered pieces appear to have words on them and the duo quickly figure out that this is likely a case of a hurt lover trying to deal with their pain, BMC. The 2 runners are mystified by this finding and begin putting pieces together to learn the names of the couple, some fragments of their story, and reasons why their relationship failed. The story follows their search for the emotionally injured persons who were so damaged they felt the need to carry a 25-pound box of tiles this far in the mountains, write their message, and smash them all to relieve their suffering. All this while research now shows crumbling up a piece of paper would suffice. Sort of a romcom-style story with a happy ending.
4. A real-life situation about friends who own bidets. I have one friend who’s family gifted him a bidet for Father’s Day and for some reason, he feels the need to send me video selfies of himself using it, as if to sell me on the idea. The last was a slow-mo video which was even stranger and yes, I tell him it’s weird but that doesn’t matter. Note: these are face shots showing him attempting to show his joy. They’re just weird. Then one day while talking to another mutual friend, I found out that he’s only been sharing this information with me. The twist is that friend 2 has a high-end bidet with warm water, heated seats, lights, and I supposed mood music. So apparently, friend 1 is concerned he’ll be judged which is why he never shared. Judged.

Anyway, thanks to Philip for the inspiration. Your short comment on my comment on your story has inspired me to start dreaming about stories again. Sorry this is all I could come up with in such a short time.