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Chairchucker
Nov 14, 2006

to ride eternal, shiny and chrome

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2022




Marsupial Ape posted:

Good advice, but I would prefer drugs. Like all the other problems in my life, I am acutely aware how to fix this with actual effort. I just don’t want to. Or don’t know how to want it enough to make it happen. You don’t have to comment on that, I am just griping.

What I am honestly interested in, though, is a thread or somewhere that’s an appropriate venue for workshopping ideas. I miss actual writing classes simply because outside perspectives valuable and motivating.

Sure sounds like you'd like Thunderdome.

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3989882

Weekly short story competition, ie an excuse to 'workshop' ideas with at least one judge who will read your writing every week.

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Marsupial Ape
Dec 15, 2020
the mod team violated the sancity of my avatar

Chairchucker posted:

Sure sounds like you'd like Thunderdome.

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3989882

Weekly short story competition, ie an excuse to 'workshop' ideas with at least one judge who will read your writing every week.

The OP post comes across as incredibly combative and, honestly, unappealing. I’m sure everyone involved is more adult, nonetheless.

Edit: that sounded harsher than I meant it to. I find most of life unappealing.

Marsupial Ape fucked around with this message at 10:27 on Nov 15, 2022

Leng
May 13, 2006

One song / Glory
One song before I go / Glory
One song to leave behind


No other road
No other way
No day but today

Marsupial Ape posted:

What I am honestly interested in, though, is a thread or somewhere that’s an appropriate venue for workshopping ideas. I miss actual writing classes simply because outside perspectives valuable and motivating.

Here you go:
https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3942154

HopperUK
Apr 29, 2007

Why would an ambulance be leaving the hospital?

Marsupial Ape posted:

The OP post comes across as incredibly combative and, honestly, unappealing. I’m sure everyone involved is more adult, nonetheless.

Edit: that sounded harsher than I meant it to. I find most of life unappealing.

It’s a sort of thread injoke to make it feel less harsh when someone says ‘I’m sorry mate but your story really is terrible’.

General Battuta
Feb 7, 2011

This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Marsupial Ape posted:

The OP post comes across as incredibly combative and, honestly, unappealing. I’m sure everyone involved is more adult, nonetheless.

Edit: that sounded harsher than I meant it to. I find most of life unappealing.

Are you on any prescription brain drugs? They can help with this stuff. Or they can be wildly unhelpful depending on personal chemistry/dosage/your monetary and medical situation.

Queen Victorian
Feb 21, 2018

Marsupial Ape posted:

I have a ton of what I believe to be legitimately interesting ideas and I have absolutely no idea how to translate them into the written word, let alone a narrative. This is something I used to be good at and I don’t know exactly how or when, I got in my own way, creatively. It’s incredibly frustrating and makes me feel like a fraud.

The answer is drugs, right? I’m willing to skip over journaling and writing exercises and get right into drugs.

I hadn't written anything in like ten years and then all of a sudden I was struck with an idea and started writing and what I've been writing is utter garbage because my creative writing ability has atrophied so much from not writing. Honestly, it's pretty hard, especially as someone who often deals with crippling perfectionism, to write down something that is complete poo poo, know it's complete poo poo, and to move on and write more.

But every day I do it, it gets a little bit easier and I feel a little less bad about the quality of what I'm writing as I undo the atrophy, re-expand my vocabulary, find the vibe, and settle into the characters. I guess it's like getting back into shape - at first it sucks and you just have to power through it, but then after a while you start to feel good and see results.

I don't know if this is too writing-exercisey for your liking, but one thing that I found helpful in the past for pinning down a story was writing random chapters. Not self-contained short stories or journal entries or anything, just chapters that read as if you opened a random book you'd never read before to a random page in the middle. Apply your ideas to the character(s) and scene at hand and don't get caught up trying to establish the setting, immediate context, backstory, or the greater plot. If it's compelling, write more along that thread and start answering your own questions about backstory and plot and whatever. If it's not, ditch it and try out a totally different scene with different characters. I have no idea if this is a valid method other people actually use, but for past projects I've gotten several characters and interesting story aspects from it. And it can be pretty fun.

As for drugs, being properly medicated can be a huge help, especially in the areas of motivation and focus (if what you deal with includes depression and executive functioning issues). I have been helped immensely by stimulants and antidepressants, personally. If you think you should be on meds, get yourself to a psychiatrist.




isaboo posted:

I've written a few (mostly) true stories in GBS, and even self-published a book of them.. I miss the days of weird and wild stories in GBS, and wanted to bring a little of that back.

This looks awesome and I shall buy a copy. Also for some reason there's something absurdly funny to me about seeing MS Paint illustrations in a printed book and I want it on my shelf.

isaboo
Nov 11, 2002

Muay Buok
ขอให้โชคดี

Queen Victorian posted:



This looks awesome and I shall buy a copy. Also for some reason there's something absurdly funny to me about seeing MS Paint illustrations in a printed book and I want it on my shelf.

Thank you! Absurd? Yes! Funny? I dunno! You tell me!

Admiralty Flag
Jun 7, 2007

to ride eternal, shiny and chrome

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2022

Marsupial Ape posted:

The answer is drugs, right? I’m willing to skip over journaling and writing exercises and get right into drugs.
I'll probably come across like a scold here, but the idea that you need to be a tortured artist continually altering yourself with substances (whether alcohol, drugs, or both) to be a good writer is simply a terrible stereotype.

That "romantic" ideal went out with having to inhabit an unheated garret in some European city to be a successful artist.

I would never have been able to write the way I do when I was still drinking and I certainly didn't read the way I do now, which is just as important as writing well. Plus, I almost never dreamed, or at least remembered my dreams (because I'd pass out instead of sleep), so I didn't have access to that realm of creativity.

Sorry if this is me missing :thejoke:, or if you were in fact referring to things like ADHD meds (but it didn't sound like you were).

Stuporstar
May 5, 2008

Where do fists come from?

Queen Victorian posted:

I don't know if this is too writing-exercisey for your liking, but one thing that I found helpful in the past for pinning down a story was writing random chapters. Not self-contained short stories or journal entries or anything, just chapters that read as if you opened a random book you'd never read before to a random page in the middle. Apply your ideas to the character(s) and scene at hand and don't get caught up trying to establish the setting, immediate context, backstory, or the greater plot. If it's compelling, write more along that thread and start answering your own questions about backstory and plot and whatever. If it's not, ditch it and try out a totally different scene with different characters. I have no idea if this is a valid method other people actually use, but for past projects I've gotten several characters and interesting story aspects from it. And it can be pretty fun.

I’ve done a lot of this. I’ve written so many chapters and scenes that haven’t made the cut into any of my novels, but they help me figure out characters and setting and what’s not working so it’s not wasted time. And I write all my novels out of order. Scrivener ended up the best writing program I’ve ever found because its non-linear format works best for my non-linear brain.

This video series goes into writing types that aren’t often talked about and I think it was the one on “methodological pantser” where I finally felt seen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eryQEZImm6Y

I also call my first drafts “draft 0” because a lot of it is written more like a long synopsis than actual words that are gonna make it into the actual story. When I get to my actual first draft, I rewrite everything from almost scratch

Pththya-lyi
Nov 8, 2009

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2020
The Romantics, despite their accomplishments, really hosed up our idea of what it means to be an artist. According to the view we inherited from them, artistic talent isn't a skill you can get better at at, but a divine gift you receive. Don't practice at your art and get better at it, just wait for the Muses to bestow their vision upon you!* Don't listen to feedback from your peers, they just don't understand your genius! A crappy work can't be improved on, you just don't have the gift!

*She said, procrastinating on her own writing

change my name
Aug 27, 2007

Legends die but anime is forever.

RIP The Lost Otakus.

Admiralty Flag posted:

I'll probably come across like a scold here, but the idea that you need to be a tortured artist continually altering yourself with substances (whether alcohol, drugs, or both) to be a good writer is simply a terrible stereotype.


Plus, getting high or drunk has never worked for me. In those cases I'd rather play a videogame than stare at an empty Scrivener page (or just fall asleep).

Admiralty Flag
Jun 7, 2007

to ride eternal, shiny and chrome

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2022

Pththya-lyi posted:

*She said, procrastinating on her own writing
Know the feeling, friend goon. I'm about 3K words behind my running NaNoWriMo target for today (25K, easy to figure out) and here I am reading threads and shitposting.

Queen Victorian
Feb 21, 2018

Stuporstar posted:

I’ve done a lot of this. I’ve written so many chapters and scenes that haven’t made the cut into any of my novels, but they help me figure out characters and setting and what’s not working so it’s not wasted time. And I write all my novels out of order. Scrivener ended up the best writing program I’ve ever found because its non-linear format works best for my non-linear brain.

This video series goes into writing types that aren’t often talked about and I think it was the one on “methodological pantser” where I finally felt seen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eryQEZImm6Y

Ooh this was very informative. I think I too am a methodological pantser. But back in high school and into college, I was a hardcore angst-fueled intuitive pantser. The results I got from writing as an intuitive pantser were dark, passionate, atmospheric, totally disorganized and a mess, and never finished because I churned through revisions endlessly.

I have entire notebooks filled with chapter fragment writings, and like 95% never made its way into an actual story, but having written all of it gave me the ability to find/distill the stuff that worked. Kind of like strip mining your own brain, so arguably super inefficient, but sometimes I need to sift through everything to find what I'm looking for because I'm not even sure what it is I'm looking for until I find it, so targeted extraction won't work. I also tend to work pretty non-linearly and keep a bunch of scribbles and notes on the side, so I've been thinking more and more about picking up Scrivener.

quote:

I also call my first drafts “draft 0” because a lot of it is written more like a long synopsis than actual words that are gonna make it into the actual story. When I get to my actual first draft, I rewrite everything from almost scratch

Me too. Usually these are handwritten, but with this most recent story I didn't have any empty notebooks on hand and was too impatient to start writing to go to Walgreens and grab a new notebook. Also doesn't help that the legibility of my handwriting has degraded substantially. But the simple act of typing up a handwritten draft would deliver so much improvement. I'll have to print out my typed draft zero and type it back up into a new document.

Pththya-lyi posted:

The Romantics, despite their accomplishments, really hosed up our idea of what it means to be an artist. According to the view we inherited from them, artistic talent isn't a skill you can get better at at, but a divine gift you receive. Don't practice at your art and get better at it, just wait for the Muses to bestow their vision upon you!* Don't listen to feedback from your peers, they just don't understand your genius! A crappy work can't be improved on, you just don't have the gift!

*She said, procrastinating on her own writing

This whole attitude hosed me over for a long time, both in writing and drawing/painting. Part of my problem was that I had plenty of innate artistic talent, which enticed me to just coast through the creative process and not consider it or develop/hone my skills with regular practice, so I was quickly surpassed by less talented people who actually practiced/studied and otherwise worked at it. Innate talent and/or divine inspiration will absolutely give you a head start, but a head start doesn't mean jack poo poo if you won't put in the effort to finish the drat race.

change my name posted:

Plus, getting high or drunk has never worked for me. In those cases I'd rather play a videogame than stare at an empty Scrivener page (or just fall asleep).

I've found that being buzzed will help me loosen up and just write without getting tangled up in my own perfectionism and doubt, but the trade-off is that the quality of my writing takes a massive hit.

But being high or full-on drunk is the opposite of helpful.

Sitting Here
Dec 31, 2007
I'll add that a lot of writers around here prefer to give feedback on existing prose rather than pure ideas. I can only speculate about why this is true for others, but for my part, I don't want to put thought into a story someone may or may not write. I'd rather support fellow writers by giving feedback on actual words on the page. Ideas are cheap, execution is priceless.

Also, if you're just turning on the tap of creative writing, you might have to let a lot of gunk flow out first. Something I've noticed is that new or returning writers are full of big ideas that they're not really equipped to execute on (though there are always exceptions!). So as people are saying, it's important to just start writing badly, knowing that you're making sort of an investment in future, better writing. Sucks but it's true.

That said, people have certainly used this thread to discuss their ideas and I would welcome a reasonable amount of that sort of thing.


Stuporstar posted:


I also call my first drafts “draft 0” because a lot of it is written more like a long synopsis than actual words that are gonna make it into the actual story. When I get to my actual first draft, I rewrite everything from almost scratch

draft 0 buddy checking in

REMEMBER SPONGE MONKEYS
Oct 3, 2003

What do you think it means, bitch?
Man, y’all can be almost inspiring at times.

Is draft 0 basically just a fleshed-out outline? I found myself wondering how lengthy it gets versus draft 1.

Admiralty Flag
Jun 7, 2007

to ride eternal, shiny and chrome

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2022

Sitting Here posted:

draft 0 buddy checking in

Perhaps if I were a better writer, I wouldn't be so afraid of rewriting everything, but with a detailed outline prepared before word 1 touches paper, my first drafts (though still lovely in a lot of ways) have had good structure, action, pacing, and a decent first pass of dialogue. (That's not to say that I don't slash, reorganize, or rewrite large chunks of text, up to a chapter at a time, in my second passes...not that I'm an expert; I've only got one novel with line edits redlined in a binder waiting to be typed up and a second novel that has finished its second draft. NaNoWriMo really came at a bad time for me as a first-time participant.)

Losing manuscripts made Hemingway a better writer. I think it would make me quit the hobby.
https://lostmanuscripts.com/2010/07/31/hemingways-lost-suitcase/

Wungus
Mar 5, 2004

Write loads throw loads out imo. This isn't even about the whole "oh first drafts suck you have to suck first" poo poo, which tbh I have issues with the way it's communicated most of the time. It's more like, if you can't bring yourself to say "oh poo poo actually you know what'd be cooler" then you're not letting stories be as rad as they can be. Writing "skillfully" is only as important as you use it to be rad as poo poo.

CaptainCrunch
Mar 19, 2006
droppin Hamiltons!

Wungus posted:

"oh poo poo actually you know what'd be cooler"

This might be the best way I've seen this stage of the process phrased to get the concept into my own brain. Thank you.

Sitting Here
Dec 31, 2007

REMEMBER SPONGE MONKEYS posted:

Man, y’all can be almost inspiring at times.

Is draft 0 basically just a fleshed-out outline? I found myself wondering how lengthy it gets versus draft 1.

Draft 0 of my current novel was a chapter-by-chapter stream of consciousness that was sometimes a summary and at other times snatches of dialog and description that seemed cool. I basically wrote the entire book out as if I was explaining it candidly to a friend over beers. I've changed many things since then, but it was fun to just chuck every idea into the pot and see which ones simmered in an appetizing way.

change my name
Aug 27, 2007

Legends die but anime is forever.

RIP The Lost Otakus.

Write your draft 0 and reverse outline if you're worried it won't be good. It's a great way to winnow your story down to see what works and figure out what should connect where.

Stuporstar
May 5, 2008

Where do fists come from?

REMEMBER SPONGE MONKEYS posted:

Man, y’all can be almost inspiring at times.

Is draft 0 basically just a fleshed-out outline? I found myself wondering how lengthy it gets versus draft 1.

Draft 0s are kinda like that, but they tend to be a pantser thing, what we do instead of outlining. Like we jump in and just write because there’s a scene in our head to kick off that’s super exciting. I still use outlines, but I don’t bother until I’ve already pantsed my way into the book and use it to figure out where I’m going if I’ve stalled.

Basically this

Sitting Here posted:

Draft 0 of my current novel was a chapter-by-chapter stream of consciousness that was sometimes a summary and at other times snatches of dialog and description that seemed cool. I basically wrote the entire book out as if I was explaining it candidly to a friend over beers. I've changed many things since then, but it was fun to just chuck every idea into the pot and see which ones simmered in an appetizing way.


Admiralty Flag posted:

Perhaps if I were a better writer, I wouldn't be so afraid of rewriting everything, but with a detailed outline prepared before word 1 touches paper, my first drafts (though still lovely in a lot of ways) have had good structure, action, pacing, and a decent first pass of dialogue. (That's not to say that I don't slash, reorganize, or rewrite large chunks of text, up to a chapter at a time, in my second passes...not that I'm an expert; I've only got one novel with line edits redlined in a binder waiting to be typed up and a second novel that has finished its second draft. NaNoWriMo really came at a bad time for me as a first-time participant.)

Losing manuscripts made Hemingway a better writer. I think it would make me quit the hobby.
https://lostmanuscripts.com/2010/07/31/hemingways-lost-suitcase/

This is basically the plotter process. In the end a plotter’s first draft is often a lot cleaner because of all the careful planning that went into the story before writing. It’s us messy-rear end pantsers who more often have to do a total rewrite because our first draft wasn’t well thought out before then. Hence the draft 0 designation

E. I should add, the current rewrite I’m working on is on a second draft novel. The plot is all in place, but I’m doing a major overhaul on the first-person narrator’s voice. Getting the voice right is super important to me. If I’m rereading and it sounds like my own voice in my head, and not the character’s, it needs to be rewritten.

Thankfully, this is the same character/narrator in an entire series, so now that the voice is figured out, the next novels will be a hellova lot easier to get the drafts right from the first (not 0 though—I’m working from several already done draft 0s)

Stuporstar fucked around with this message at 23:45 on Nov 15, 2022

Queen Victorian
Feb 21, 2018

Wungus posted:

"oh poo poo actually you know what'd be cooler"

Yeah this is great. I'm doing a fuckton of this, sometimes to the point of having a bunch of redundant scenes in the same chapter or abrupt conversational shifts to capture whatever cool new/better idea/direction. With the way I write, everything other than the skeletal main arc is kind of shifting sand in my head in the very beginning, so aside from sloppy/rusty writing, my zero drafts do a ton of heavy lifting to find the story's optimal course, and that's honestly the more important function. Like I don't mind if draft 0 -> draft 1 is a 100% rewrite. I can always fix word choice and sentence structure and poo poo later so I try not to worry about it early on, but if I do come up with some elegant little morsel of prose, whole hog retyping makes it easy to pull it into subsequent drafts while leaving all the chaff behind.

Definitely a pantser thing.

Pththya-lyi
Nov 8, 2009

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2020

Sitting Here posted:

I'll add that a lot of writers around here prefer to give feedback on existing prose rather than pure ideas. I can only speculate about why this is true for others, but for my part, I don't want to put thought into a story someone may or may not write. I'd rather support fellow writers by giving feedback on actual words on the page. Ideas are cheap, execution is priceless.

Agreed. The answer to "Should I write [X]" is pretty much always going to be "Why not? Go for it." I think the main exceptions are 1) wildly bigoted ideas and 2) edgy critiques of a genre the author doesn't know much about ("What if I wrote a genre mystery where they never figure out whodunit?").

E: You know what? I should expand that to writing in any genre you don't know much about. Whether it's literary, sci-fi, romance, mystery, or whatever, you should have a general understanding of what came before you, lest you reinvent the wheel.

Pththya-lyi fucked around with this message at 01:33 on Nov 16, 2022

Wungus
Mar 5, 2004

Queen Victorian posted:

Definitely a pantser thing.

I write with an outline

Admiralty Flag
Jun 7, 2007

to ride eternal, shiny and chrome

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2022

Stuporstar posted:

This is basically the plotter process. In the end a plotter’s first draft is often a lot cleaner because of all the careful planning that went into the story before writing. It’s us messy-rear end pantsers who more often have to do a total rewrite because our first draft wasn’t well thought out before then. Hence the draft 0 designation
Yeah, I'm definitely an extreme plotter, like 95% of the way there on the continuum. (My outlines are detailed down four levels: 1st level = chapter, 2nd = scenes warranting scene breaks, 3rd = mini-scenes, 4th = detail/elements to include in mini-scene.) That's not to say that I don't come up with ideas while writing; I simply update the outline when I do so (or, for sections I've already written, I put new highlighted lines into the outline to hit on the next draft).

I'm in awe of pantsers and the skill it takes to write that way, but that's just part of my personality and likely the way I handle my ADHD. For example, I don't know how people cook without using recipes. If I tried to write without an outline, it would be very challenging, almost certainly would turn out as a huge mess, and probably would lack a lot of the elements of symbolism, foreshadowing, etc., that I get with my outline.

For me, the biggest challenge with heavily plotting is that my characters can't always follow the outline and stay true to themselves, which leads to lots of ignoring/updating the outline when I write character-intensive scenes.

Wungus
Mar 5, 2004

Admiralty Flag posted:

For me, the biggest challenge with heavily plotting is that my characters can't always follow the outline and stay true to themselves, which leads to lots of ignoring/updating the outline when I write character-intensive scenes.
That's not a problem. Neither a plotter or a pantser is a fuckin' human being trait, they're marketing terms made by people who sell tribalism. Some people use super flexible outlines, and if that's you, roll with it. It's not a problem if it's the method that works for you.

Like, just because you said at one point that a thing should happen doesn't mean it has to be that way forever. Iterate. Develop. Flexibility rules.

Fumblemouse
Mar 21, 2013


STANDARD
DEVIANT
Grimey Drawer

Marsupial Ape posted:

I have a ton of what I believe to be legitimately interesting ideas and I have absolutely no idea how to translate them into the written word, let alone a narrative. This is something I used to be good at and I don’t know exactly how or when, I got in my own way, creatively. It’s incredibly frustrating and makes me feel like a fraud.

Another way to look at it: this is something you used to be terrible at it but didn't notice in your youthful enthusiasm. After some growth, time, and experience in life and in reading, you somehow accidentally developed a degree of discernment. You have just, in fact, taken important steps toward not being a fraud, and can begin the work towards meeting those newfound expectations, even though it's way less fun than puppy-level amazement at your own poop.

Marsupial Ape posted:

The answer is drugs, right? I’m willing to skip over journaling and writing exercises and get right into drugs.
This is a good plan, a perfect plan and one with with no easily foreseeable downside whatsoever.

Fumblemouse fucked around with this message at 02:48 on Nov 16, 2022

Stuporstar
May 5, 2008

Where do fists come from?

Wungus posted:

I write with an outline

Yeah, the plotter/pantser stuff is not a binary. It’s useful to help people figure out maybe why some methods work for them better than others, but people love jumping into boxes and going, “This is me!” and then not straying from that box even if the tools in that box stop working for them, so that’s something to be wary of

Junpei
Oct 4, 2015
Probation
Can't post for 11 years!
I've seen the term "plantser" used for people who have a mix of both, like "ambivert" for intro/extrovert.

Wungus
Mar 5, 2004

e: nm

Wungus fucked around with this message at 04:10 on Nov 16, 2022

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Wungus posted:

what's the point

So you can read it and go "how bout that huh?"

E: Lol gotchu

Queen Victorian
Feb 21, 2018

The only thing I'm capable of outlining reliably is project specs at work. Story-wise, I can plan/plot at a very high level, like main arc and identifying moments/scenes I want to hit while actually writing, but I have a hard time sticking to any detailed outline that I write beforehand, either because it kills the fun or I have a sudden new idea and the outline is thrown to the wind.

Admiralty Flag posted:

I'm in awe of pantsers and the skill it takes to write that way, but that's just part of my personality and likely the way I handle my ADHD. For example, I don't know how people cook without using recipes. If I tried to write without an outline, it would be very challenging, almost certainly would turn out as a huge mess, and probably would lack a lot of the elements of symbolism, foreshadowing, etc., that I get with my outline.

This is fascinating to me because I thought it was my ADHD that was contributing to making following recipes difficult and stressful, especially if there's sensitive timing and multiple parts that need to be handled in parallel. I am not truly comfortable cooking a thing until I'm good enough at the techniques and/or have done it enough so that I DON'T have to follow a recipe.

Ultimately though, I find the writer-type labels helpful. :shrug: In getting back into writing and digging into the terms and types of methods/processes, I've been able to identify why my previous projects failed and and also identify why I'm so much more productive on my new project (25k words in 2.5 weeks, so far) and how to keep doing what's working.

Junpei
Oct 4, 2015
Probation
Can't post for 11 years!
I might have said this before but for me, writing is like a road trip: I have a start point, an end point, and a few spots on the map I wanna hit between those two, but mostly I let myself be suprised by a random really good taco stand I have lunch at, or a landmark on the side of the road-I didn't plan to hit em, but they came up along the way and I'm glad I stopped by them.

Pththya-lyi
Nov 8, 2009

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2020
Instead of developing a drug habit, why not develop a health habit? I'm not saying get swole or run a marathon, but maybe take a walk once in a while? Sometimes that helps me when I get stuck on a story. Maybe eat a piece of fruit, or drink some water. I bet that's going to go a lot farther than 1 Weird Writing Trick.

Admiralty Flag
Jun 7, 2007

to ride eternal, shiny and chrome

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2022

Pththya-lyi posted:

I'm not saying get swole or run a marathon, but maybe take a walk once in a while? Sometimes that helps me when I get stuck on a story.
FWIW, going out for a run has helped my writing significantly on multiple occasions, either by coming up with answers to getting stuck ("My outline says X but that doesn't really ring true anymore, but I'm not sure what does...oh, Y works, I'll rework my outline") or improving/expanding/enhancing ideas I already have.

I think it's a combination of getting away from the computer and touching grass (even if it's with my feet) and decontextualizing my thinking (things look different when I'm exerting myself and panting).

SurreptitiousMuffin
Mar 21, 2010
Yeah going out into the forest and just touching a tree for a while, I mean ... it sounds ridiculous but it's got me through two manuscripts so far, it really shouldn't be as effective as it is but also I don't knock what works

drugs and alcohol have basically never helped, I tried it a lot when I was younger but they just gently caress my focus and I can't stay on-task, I really don't know how people do it. I've been known to engage in ... let's call it mind expansion, and I think it CAN give you ideas for later if you're able to hold onto them, but working while high is a shitshow and I suspect the talk about it, in large part, just bullshit mythmaking.

SurreptitiousMuffin fucked around with this message at 07:21 on Nov 16, 2022

Luigi Thirty
Apr 30, 2006

Emergency confection port.

Queen Victorian posted:

That is a good deal like me, actually. I have ADD, diagnosed and for the most part medicated. I am also medicated for seasonal depression. But honestly, the meds might make it worse because then I can sustain engagement with writing and the story a whole lot longer.

Oh, it’s me. I cranked out a 4,000 word story like it was nothing, have pages and pages of notes for other stories, but… now I can’t put more than 50 words at a time down without ADD brain yelling about riding bikes.

Gaius Marius
Oct 9, 2012

Just write about riding bikes. Easy as that

Marsupial Ape
Dec 15, 2020
the mod team violated the sancity of my avatar

Fumblemouse posted:

Another way to look at it: this is something you used to be terrible at it but didn't notice in your youthful enthusiasm. After some growth, time, and experience in life and in reading, you somehow accidentally developed a degree of discernment. You have just, in fact, taken important steps toward not being a fraud, and can begin the work towards meeting those newfound expectations, even though it's way less fun than puppy-level amazement at your own poop.

This is a good plan, a perfect plan and one with with no easily foreseeable downside whatsoever.

I'm a 42 year old man. I have an English Degree with a creative writing education emphasis. I used to teach writing. One day I realized I couldn't and shouldn't. What's the point of killing your darlings if they are all abortions, anyway? By pass the miserable still birthing all together. I really feel like this polly-anna 'you can do it if you Care Bear Stare long enough' attitude towards writing is incredibly toxic. Not everyone is equipped to be a storyteller, no matter how much they throw themselves against that wall. Divine muses or not, if you ain't got the juice, you ain't got the juice. The real tragedy of it is that most of us are perfectly equipped to appreciate art, to interpret and ingest it, but not to synthesis it into something new. Story telling is thaumaturgy, is wonder making, and not everyone is made to invoke it. To make someone believe that can actually do that magic, make their mind's eye visible to another person, but always be just out of their reach is a cruel abuse of hope.

You guys are fine, though.

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sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









You could say the same about carpentry

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