Impetus: a driving force, impulse, or stimulus that encourages activity or makes a process more effective. It acts as the motivation behind an action.
Okay, it’s pretty cliche to ask the question – what’s your why? It’s the one thing (at this point in your journey) you’ll likely have little trouble locating. You hate “x”, you love “y”, you’d like to have a little more “z” and a little less “b”. It’s actually one of the simplest, but most powerful components of the written narrative – the moment where our protagonist finds themselves imbued with a do-or-die motive.
In writing, the discovery of one’s impetus is sometimes referred to as the “third act”, the “all is lost moment”, the “dark night of the soul” scenario. It…is…powerful. It’s a death/rebirth phoenix-like phenomenon. A swat and swivel. A ride to the sound of the guns, consequences be damned type of scene! WE all love this! WE all feel this! WE all want to live in this moment forever when we’re in it! But we can’t.
Think about the word impetus, it has the same root prefix as the word, impetuous. Both are derived from Latin origins – meaning to attack, assault, move with rapid motion, or exert with violent force. It’s a moment of clarity, verifiable vision, and undeniable certainty. It’s the aha moment! Kaboom!
We all love fireworks! But fireworks are not the stuff of bonfires. Impetus is the striking of flint upon the rock. The lighting of a match. Impetus is the ignition by which we may start our engine, but it is not the fuel by which we keep our engine running.
I don’t think I need to even ask why you want to ey925. Sure, you may forget, from time to time, why you wish to be a full-time author, vlogger, and/or blogger. And often, when we don’t achieve these goals, people will say something like “you need to remember why you started,” and there may be some truth to it.
But I think the real reason we haven’t finished that book, gotten our degree, opened up that coffee cart is simple – something is wrong with our engine. We lack discipline. We lack process, procedure, and protocol. We keep turning our key to the sound of “rearrreeaarrrreeaaarrr, click click click click,” but we got no fuel in the tank! We creatives (and I use that term loosely for myself) are always trying to cook a meal off the heat emanating from our Roman candles! We have 1,000 ideas and aren’t able to implement and/or realize any of them!
We love mapping our trip, over and over again. We get a mile down the road, and then we have to get out and push. We lose steam and give up. So, my fellow road-trippers, when will we fill the tank with adequate fuel to spur us on to that destination we’ve so long dreamed of? What is the chemical composition of that fuel? What does it consist of? Let me know what you think in the comments below! Have a great weekend!
Pete
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