>>149667137 (OP)>what motivated him?There was a letter by Robert E Howard I think you should read.
"I don’t expect others to follow rules laid down for myself. You can say that certain activities are superior to other activities; that’s right; but that doesn’t necessarily follow that the superior activity will always give a man the fullest possible satisfaction. Human nature is too complex; temperaments differ too greatly. Nor is innate capacity an absolute index to preferences. My cousin had the capacity to become a great artist. He chose to become an acrobat. I’ve known plenty of men who had greater natural capacities in lines other than the pursuits they deliberately followed. I certainly don’t belong with the bunch I’ve been naming, but to use a concrete example of a very humble kind: in high school I showed something of a knack for biology, certainly my science grades were infinitely higher than my English and literature grades. I have reason to believe that I had more capacity for biology than I have for literature. My teacher—who detested me as human being but seemed to appreciate my laboratory work—suggested that I take up biology as a career. Now undoubtedly biology is a career superior to writing fiction for the wood-pulps. But it wasn’t a question of superiority with me; it was a question of what I enjoyed most. I wanted to be a writer; I didn’t give a damn about being a scientist. I chose the wood pulps, and I do not in the slightest regret my choice. I might have gone much further as a scientist, but I know very well I wouldn’t have enjoyed the life as much as I have that of a writer. If I ever said anything about “arbitrary” standards, that’s probably what I meant—the assumption that a certain pursuit necessarily offers the fullest satisfaction to all sorts of temperament, merely because it is of the superior type"
