Small things can make a big difference. I recently made it to level one and got the ability to vote and in true OCD fashion I endeavored to exercise this new power to the fullest and spend all of my votes everyday. In doing so I have read a lot of write-ups that I would never have bothered with before and this has brought about an interesting change in me. I really want to write. Mind you I always wanted to write before but it was never like this. This is a creative high that I've never experienced.
So I'm riding along on my way to lunch thinking about some of my drafts and it occurs to me that I'm on a creative high that I'm actually acting on instead of just thinking about it and I ask myself; why? The obvious answer is that I'm just spending more time on E2 so clearly I'm thinking about noding more, but I've spent so many hours on this site without feeling like this that I have to think that it's more complicated. Then it hits me; I've only ever read things that I like. Before now I didn't have any reason to expose myself to write-ups that I thought would be crappy or boring. I think that was the problem. When I only read what I liked it set the bar really high for my work (especially since I like really complicated and weird stories) and that kept me from wanting to publish until I had some amazing idea that would wow everybody. I now realize that there is a real value to reading a broad selection of work, good and bad. So to all of the noders out there that slapped a string of words together and called it a day log, thought that two sentences to fill a nodeshell wasn't lazy, or just decided to add a lousy write up in a popular node to try and piggy back off of it's popularity; I salute you. Your lack luster efforts have inspire me to node almost as much as the greats.