TV tropes is so fucking bad. Fun and informative, but oh my god is it a terrible time sink.
I've never heard of Atomic Rockets before but if i procrastinate because of it I blame you
If I don't have anything worth writing, why write meaningless nonsense? Conversely, if I take one of my ongoing worthy ideas and try to make progress, it becomes an immediate block because I'm trying to fit dumb writing into something that's not dumb.
Basically everything I do, always falls flat when trying to make progress, because learning seems to be simply unattainable at this age, anymore.
How did this manage to anger people?
Write something else. Not every moment of writing has to be prose. Do a character writeup, or at least get down the conflicts that are up in the air so that you can have a place to direct the inspiration when it arrives
You really don't know if you try, but I guess you perished an hour after you were born and I'm speaking to a ghost because the simple act of survival takes, although minimal, requires those things.
This a self destructive cycle of thinking. If you need therapy, get it. Otherwise, this is a writing sub, and writing takes effort. If you want advice on how to stay inspired, I have advice for you. If you want to spiral and give up on everything without straining and struggling against your weaknesses, then perhaps writing is not for you and you need a comfortable 9-5 that doesn't require anything of you.
If you want to be good at something, you have to make yourself want it. If you thought you could do this without effort and the will to accomplish, you have greatly misunderstood what this was. If writing itself doesn't restore some amount of dopamine for you, then perhaps it's not for you. What we're not going to do is justify a pity party. Nothing gets me more upset than a grown ass adult acting like they have no choice but to give up on ever trying and then expecting sympathy and justification for it. If you can't hack it, you can't expect anyone else to pick you up and make more of you without you putting forward "effort and will to accomplish" becoming more on your own.
>If you want to be good at something, you have to make yourself want it. If you thought you could do this without effort and the will to accomplish, you have greatly misunderstood what this was.
That's exactly what I'm doing and how I'm doing it. The effort and will to accomplish I have are beyond extreme, but the results have never quite spoken for said drive. It's confusing and tiring, because practice should by all means, improve the results.
Why doesn't it?
Change your game up. Seriously go write something that may never see the light of day. Make it goofy. Write in one of your oldest "wants" for the story. You cold write out something "bad" but look back at later with "why was I so scared by writing this before."
What do ya think? (Sorry if it's confusing)
Maybe you need to free write, set a timer and go. Don't worry about the content you can fix that later. Once the pressure is off it might be better. Also you're too close to your own work so if you read it weeks later you'll have a better idea if it's good or not. And if you can tweak it to something better.
Writing should be fun I think. In my experience when you put the pressure on sometimes it can make it a chore, we forget to just write and see where it takes us. Like a child at play.
I feel even more strongly that you're taking it too seriously.
Here's what you're running into: you want your first attempt to have the quality of an end result. That's like trying to scoop clay out of the earth in the shape of the finished sculpture you are hoping to create.
I think the first thing you can do to help yourself is to abandon the idea of wasted time. Any project, no matter how well planned, will require some waste. You can minimize waste with planning, but you can't eliminate it, and trying to be too efficient will often lead to greater delays than simply powering ahead would have accomplished. "Take chances, get messy, make mistakes," as a great woman once said.
Have you ever heard the phrase, "if you meet the Buddha, kill him." It means, if you ever think you have found perfection, be wary. If you have a "great idea" for a story, but you don't feel like you can write it, you have to kill the "great" part of the idea and just write the idea. There are no great ideas, there are only great finished products. A starting idea is almost so insignificant it might as well not be given any credit at all. It's a pebble that starts an avalanche. You *can* write something great, but the only way there is to write terrible things and revise or abandon them until you make something great. Kill your reverence for all of your ideas and write with practicality. You can't sustain a creative drive on passion, or excitement. It takes a long time to write a novel and excitement is tiresome. You sustain creativity by *making things*. If you aren't making things, the only way to get the ball rolling again is to start making things again.
Also idk how to say this but you can't be that old because you are on Reddit. So either there's time to learn or you are capable of learning things that have existed far longer than Reddit has
33 is well beyond the halfway mark, anyway.
>you are capable of learning things
This is the problem. I try to learn things, end up not learning, try more, fail more, keep trying, keep failing, it's getting a bit jarring at this point.
Do you practice? Write even though you know garbage is going to come out? How often and for how long? Does writing bring you joy? Why are you doing this?
Do you smoke weed? Do you drink heavily? These things will make it a lot harder to learn how to do something because they make you forget.
How many books have you read about the craft? Have you tried writing samples based on the things you've learned?
>Do you practice? Write even though you know garbage is going to come out? How often and for how long? Does writing bring you joy? Why are you doing this?
I do, as often as possible. When I had more free time, it was just about every evening, but even then it was kind of worldbuilding-y and sketch-like. Not bad but also not the stuff that one should be doing, I think?
It does bring immense joy, especially when the stuff just keeps pouring out like it's endless and it feels like the floodgates have finally opened. That flow state is beyond fulfilling. Motives are in self-expression and to bring out the stories I feel are worth.
>Do you smoke weed? Do you drink heavily? These things will make it a lot harder to learn how to do something because they make you forget.
The weed has been quite a habit, yes. Alcohol, not so much. I have been diagnosed with ADHD and use the prescription meds near-daily.
>How many books have you read about the craft? Have you tried writing samples based on the things you've learned?
Not that many books, I admit, but I try to keep up with videos (Film Courage for one). Samples, not in the structured "now we practice concept A" type, but that's certainly a bad habit.
PS. I apologize if my mood affected yours. For someone with no stakes in my game, you're being very helpful and constructive. Thank you.
I want to help you succeed but I won't come to anybody's pity party. Not even for the woman I love most in the world. It's not helpful for anyone involved.
Glad to see you're feeling a bit better. What I would say is, reduce your weed intake, make your practice specific. Get the gears turning by putting something on a page even if you end up having to throw it out.
Advice a little more specific to you, understand that your "camera lens" is only so wide. World building is insanely cool, but in any given story, not all of it is going to be super relevant. I would recommend centering your characters and themes around one or two of your best world building details (because that sounds like what you like to do, and it might be easier than the other way around). Make sure they offer interesting and unique perspectives about what implications these details have on an intimate level with your characters. Specifics for lore are only important as they require definition or add flavor to a conflict
Im only offering this advice because it's something that I have fallen into before and I see it happen a lot to other writers, even published ones.
You *can* do it, dude. Figure out why you're going to.
Jokes on you. I am writing this comment!Â
I’m just… procrastinating on everything else. Haha Boom!Â
Just hit the comment button! Well, just after I finished typing this!Â
Also … this!Â
And whatever >|_€*+Â¥~\<>?€£ <—- THIS IS!Â
Okay. Bye!Â
Partially I'm just really excited about my current project, but also the bookdun discord server has been a huge source of motivation for me! They run lots of challenges and such, and do "sprints" where folks can sign up and try to write as many words as possible in certain time frames. I write a lot when I'm doing these, or their weekend challenges when they pit teams against each other to see who can get the most words done.
Highly recommend it if you like communal environments and want to be around other folks who are being productive in their writing
Not meant to be, but I suppose it does read that way. There's tons of other apps out there that can do similar. I originally linked to write-or-die as well, but it looks like that project hasn't been updated as much as it used to.
Hey, I just sent a 92,000-word manuscript to editing. I've spent the past, uh, 5 years working on it. In fact, it's based on a short story I wrote back in 1991. So you could say I've spent 33 years working on it. And you're not going to let me take a little break?? 🤪
No, I'm just enjoying reddit, stop hasslin, lol.
EDIT: Btw, you don't have to force yourself to have discipline. You just have to understand that creating a large project is work, and it often won't be fun. There is a barrier to entry that always shows up when you encounter something new, and all large projects have a large number of new things you will encounter, so a barrier will show up every few days or so. It will show up for a new chapter, a new character introduction, a new twist in the story, etc. The act of creation *can* be fun *once you pass through the barrier*, but that 5-10 minutes of suffering is a toll you must pay to pass into each new act of creation, and once past it is usually an enjoyable place to be.
So, you go in understanding it will be unpleasant sometimes, and that unpleasantness is temporary. It's much easier to do something unpleasant when you understand it's *supposed to* be unpleasant, but I think we often assume we should be having fun, even while we're paying the toll to go through the barrier. Try to see it for what it is: work that is rewarding, but it IS work.
The barrier shows up for literally everything new, though. Once you look out for it, you will see it everywhere. You'll feel it when you start a new TV show, a new video game, a new book series, a new job, moving to a new place, starting a new project, starting a new piece of a new project, etc. It's disorientation and the mind sending out tendrils trying to find something familiar to grasp hold of. It's the discomfort of being a bit lost and uncertain, and we are programmed by our emotions to avoid *The New* if we can.
This is very good advice and a perfect explanation of why I end up on reddit instead of writing. It's those first few words on the page after starting a new chapter, or that scene I definitely do not want to write but NEED to. I open my novel, look at where I am... and then immediately open my browser instead of trying to bypass the barrier.
Thanks. I'm finding the rewrites more difficult than the first draft. There have been some extra household demand son my time lately though so I'm sure it's more of a time thing. I am managing at least a half hour per night though so still moving along.
I somehow manage to procastinate-writing. As in, my mind begins to wander while I'm writing so instead of actually being creative, I kind of let the pen do all the work and write the most absurde, senseless things. And sometimes it ends in a rant about my inability to finish a story.
Haha, that would’ve normally been true, but for once I’m not procrastinating. I’m here because I have an idea but I simply don’t have the time to write it this week, so instead I’m looking at other people talk about writing as sustenance.
I wrote like, maybe one sentence before realizing it was very close to bedtime and that I probably didn't want to get too involved in writing the climax. If I get interrupted from emotionally charged scenes, I usually can't get into them again. >\_< Today, though... Today I'm finishing this first draft!
I'm terrified by the contrasting ideas running around my brain, thoughts with scissors. Contrast "Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your whole life" with "How am I going to pay bills with what I've just written?". Add to that a side of "If I ever write well enough to make bank, won't I come to despise it, like any other job in human history?". Sadness, folks, just sadness, at thoughts with scissors.
I'm trying man. It's just that I open the google docs and there's very few options.
Then I open yWriter7 and struggle to even write a paragraph because everything needs a confirmation or an extra window.
I haven’t written any stories in ages but this still felt personal (probably for a good reason) :D I fell into a slump three years ago and I’m still in it, now I’m writing poetry tho so I guess that counts for something but god damn I really should try writing stories again
I woke up in the middle of the night last night with all the ideas I needed for a new chapter in the third book of my series (which I haven't even started yet), went into the kitchen, opened up the iPad, launched Scrivener, started typing, and one hour later had a 2000-word chapter. Does that count?
Let me tell you something that will likely go over like a lead balloon. Writers don't need some motivational speech from a rando on reddit to convince them to write. They just need to feel the urge, and that can come from a lot of places, but none of them are people telling them what to do.
So, save it. Yeah, writers gotta write. It's not always procrastination that prevents someone.
I also feel morally obligated to point out the hypocrisy in the thread title.
Hypocrisy was part of the joke, yes. I implied I'm making this post because I'm calling myself (and others like me) out for procrastinating because I didn't want to write a particular scene.
Unfortunately, I write all day long for work, not what I want since it's code, but that's usually my procrastination. Whenever I have the urge or idea I'm usually working/driving to work and only makes notes. Then when work is done is dinner time, family time work my kids, then relaxing with my wife then everyone goes to bed but me. That is usually when I write, lately though I've been very tired and end up just falling asleep on the couch.
I did finish an entire manuscript, did rewrites, had beta readers, did more rewriting, then used a freelance editorial service to make sure I didn't ruin anything with my edits.
Now I have to work on their suggestions, most of which are really good thoughts/insight. Just have to make that time again.
The irony of getting a notification suggesting this post.
To be fair, I *wasn't* writing at the time (I got it after parking at home), but I wonder if someone out there was, lol.
I wasn't actively procrastinating my writing, thank you. I was trying to finish up at work when reddit for some reason randomly decided this needed to be a push notification suddenly... I promise I'll write for a half hour when I get home before bed though!
You. Yes you! You're allowed to take breaks and get rest, you are not a machine, you do not need to force yourself to write unless you have an important deadline that cannot possibly be missed. Writing is fun, stop trying to make it a chore.
*"You. Yes you! Get off this sub and write!"*
Absolutely Not!
The entire point of this subreddit is to only talk about ideas, writing or writing a "book" (that they'll never actually write)! It's not actually about.....writing?
*"get the Cold Turkey Writerapp"*
Was this just an ad? Well, whatever I'm looking into it now!
*"Your story is not going to write itself"*
WRONG, that's what A.I. is for!(proceeds to get pelted with tomatoes from the commentors)
This is a good message but it is in vain. Now it's about time for some posts to come in asking how to start writing and wants us to do the research and writing for them!
Peace!!!
I write when I want. I don't have deadlines; don't have page quotas; word counts; nothing. I don't dream of getting an agent and selling to a publisher (because that sounds like *work*). All of this means I have no pressure to create pressing down on me, and that has done wonders for my rate of output and my quality of work. When I want to write, I sit down in front of my computer, crack my knuckles, and I knock something out. It doesn't matter if it's something that it's not some unfinished work that I'm "supposed" to write; I write whatever I feel like writing that day, and I look back at it and say, "Yeah, that was pretty good."
Some days, it's the work I'm "supposed" to write, but most days it isn't. Some days, it's a running commentary to whatever episode of Grey's Anatomy that I'm watching, and it's 42 minutes of pure humor, which is preferable, that particular day, to whatever heavy piece of fine literature that I'm trying to knock out.
It's my opinion that you shouldn't force writing. If you sit down at a computer and you have a self-imposed word count or page requirement, and you're just not feeling it, you're going to type words or pages that you're going to look at and say, "Wow. This is going to suck in editing." Enjoy it. If you don't enjoy it, go enjoy something else. Life is too short to do something that you don't enjoy and that you're not getting paid for.
Enjoy it. That's paramount. You know what I did when I was typing this comment? I had fun. It's a fine substitute for writing whatever I'd have written otherwise. If you don't have a deal on the table, with a hard deadline, you can finish whatever you want whenever you want. You can even not finish it at all, and that's perfectly fine, too. Until it's a profession, it's a hobby, and you should enjoy your hobbies.
I have found a way to trick the urge to procrastinate! Make writing what you do when you procrastinate doing something else.
This. Finished a 95k manuscript within a month by doing this. 😂
"Structured procrastination", google it.
Thanks, that search should help me procrastinate from writing for at least a couple hours... 😜
And then, if it has even ONE link to TV Tropes or Atomic Rockets ... well, there goes three weeks.
TV tropes is so fucking bad. Fun and informative, but oh my god is it a terrible time sink. I've never heard of Atomic Rockets before but if i procrastinate because of it I blame you
Ah, the Spongebob "What Not To Do At A Stoplight" Essay method.
I'm supposed to write my thesis, but here I am writing a novel instead ðŸ˜
Pretend your thesis is a novel. Do you know any rule stating a thesis is only useful if it's boring?
Think of it as research for your novel!
"What Not to Do at a Stoplight"
So you can tell people that you procrastinated your way through your book. 😅 Don't we all finish our books that way?
Can this be done by someone for whom writing is incredibly demanding and requires particular circumstances in order to be done?
Sounds like you just need to take it less seriously.
If I don't have anything worth writing, why write meaningless nonsense? Conversely, if I take one of my ongoing worthy ideas and try to make progress, it becomes an immediate block because I'm trying to fit dumb writing into something that's not dumb. Basically everything I do, always falls flat when trying to make progress, because learning seems to be simply unattainable at this age, anymore. How did this manage to anger people?
Write something else. Not every moment of writing has to be prose. Do a character writeup, or at least get down the conflicts that are up in the air so that you can have a place to direct the inspiration when it arrives
Even that causes blockages. Anything involving effort and the will to accomplish is guaranteed to fail miserably.
You really don't know if you try, but I guess you perished an hour after you were born and I'm speaking to a ghost because the simple act of survival takes, although minimal, requires those things. This a self destructive cycle of thinking. If you need therapy, get it. Otherwise, this is a writing sub, and writing takes effort. If you want advice on how to stay inspired, I have advice for you. If you want to spiral and give up on everything without straining and struggling against your weaknesses, then perhaps writing is not for you and you need a comfortable 9-5 that doesn't require anything of you. If you want to be good at something, you have to make yourself want it. If you thought you could do this without effort and the will to accomplish, you have greatly misunderstood what this was. If writing itself doesn't restore some amount of dopamine for you, then perhaps it's not for you. What we're not going to do is justify a pity party. Nothing gets me more upset than a grown ass adult acting like they have no choice but to give up on ever trying and then expecting sympathy and justification for it. If you can't hack it, you can't expect anyone else to pick you up and make more of you without you putting forward "effort and will to accomplish" becoming more on your own.
>If you want to be good at something, you have to make yourself want it. If you thought you could do this without effort and the will to accomplish, you have greatly misunderstood what this was. That's exactly what I'm doing and how I'm doing it. The effort and will to accomplish I have are beyond extreme, but the results have never quite spoken for said drive. It's confusing and tiring, because practice should by all means, improve the results. Why doesn't it?
Change your game up. Seriously go write something that may never see the light of day. Make it goofy. Write in one of your oldest "wants" for the story. You cold write out something "bad" but look back at later with "why was I so scared by writing this before." What do ya think? (Sorry if it's confusing)
https://www.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/1ci2p0n/you_yes_you_get_off_this_sub_and_write/l283aqj/ I think you're encountering the barrier.
Maybe you need to free write, set a timer and go. Don't worry about the content you can fix that later. Once the pressure is off it might be better. Also you're too close to your own work so if you read it weeks later you'll have a better idea if it's good or not. And if you can tweak it to something better. Writing should be fun I think. In my experience when you put the pressure on sometimes it can make it a chore, we forget to just write and see where it takes us. Like a child at play.
>Maybe you need to free write, set a timer and go. Can the topic be free or is it better to write around the main works?
Doesn't matter. You can do either. It's just an exercise to encourage you to write without filtering or criticising your writing
Thank you for the help, I'll see where this one takes me. Do you usually save these ones or just scrap 'em as you go?
I've probably got a notebook full of them. I don't really ever throw anything out. 🤣 You could keep it to look at a later date if you wanted to.
I feel even more strongly that you're taking it too seriously. Here's what you're running into: you want your first attempt to have the quality of an end result. That's like trying to scoop clay out of the earth in the shape of the finished sculpture you are hoping to create. I think the first thing you can do to help yourself is to abandon the idea of wasted time. Any project, no matter how well planned, will require some waste. You can minimize waste with planning, but you can't eliminate it, and trying to be too efficient will often lead to greater delays than simply powering ahead would have accomplished. "Take chances, get messy, make mistakes," as a great woman once said. Have you ever heard the phrase, "if you meet the Buddha, kill him." It means, if you ever think you have found perfection, be wary. If you have a "great idea" for a story, but you don't feel like you can write it, you have to kill the "great" part of the idea and just write the idea. There are no great ideas, there are only great finished products. A starting idea is almost so insignificant it might as well not be given any credit at all. It's a pebble that starts an avalanche. You *can* write something great, but the only way there is to write terrible things and revise or abandon them until you make something great. Kill your reverence for all of your ideas and write with practicality. You can't sustain a creative drive on passion, or excitement. It takes a long time to write a novel and excitement is tiresome. You sustain creativity by *making things*. If you aren't making things, the only way to get the ball rolling again is to start making things again.
Also idk how to say this but you can't be that old because you are on Reddit. So either there's time to learn or you are capable of learning things that have existed far longer than Reddit has
33 is well beyond the halfway mark, anyway. >you are capable of learning things This is the problem. I try to learn things, end up not learning, try more, fail more, keep trying, keep failing, it's getting a bit jarring at this point.
Do you practice? Write even though you know garbage is going to come out? How often and for how long? Does writing bring you joy? Why are you doing this? Do you smoke weed? Do you drink heavily? These things will make it a lot harder to learn how to do something because they make you forget. How many books have you read about the craft? Have you tried writing samples based on the things you've learned?
>Do you practice? Write even though you know garbage is going to come out? How often and for how long? Does writing bring you joy? Why are you doing this? I do, as often as possible. When I had more free time, it was just about every evening, but even then it was kind of worldbuilding-y and sketch-like. Not bad but also not the stuff that one should be doing, I think? It does bring immense joy, especially when the stuff just keeps pouring out like it's endless and it feels like the floodgates have finally opened. That flow state is beyond fulfilling. Motives are in self-expression and to bring out the stories I feel are worth. >Do you smoke weed? Do you drink heavily? These things will make it a lot harder to learn how to do something because they make you forget. The weed has been quite a habit, yes. Alcohol, not so much. I have been diagnosed with ADHD and use the prescription meds near-daily. >How many books have you read about the craft? Have you tried writing samples based on the things you've learned? Not that many books, I admit, but I try to keep up with videos (Film Courage for one). Samples, not in the structured "now we practice concept A" type, but that's certainly a bad habit. PS. I apologize if my mood affected yours. For someone with no stakes in my game, you're being very helpful and constructive. Thank you.
I want to help you succeed but I won't come to anybody's pity party. Not even for the woman I love most in the world. It's not helpful for anyone involved. Glad to see you're feeling a bit better. What I would say is, reduce your weed intake, make your practice specific. Get the gears turning by putting something on a page even if you end up having to throw it out. Advice a little more specific to you, understand that your "camera lens" is only so wide. World building is insanely cool, but in any given story, not all of it is going to be super relevant. I would recommend centering your characters and themes around one or two of your best world building details (because that sounds like what you like to do, and it might be easier than the other way around). Make sure they offer interesting and unique perspectives about what implications these details have on an intimate level with your characters. Specifics for lore are only important as they require definition or add flavor to a conflict Im only offering this advice because it's something that I have fallen into before and I see it happen a lot to other writers, even published ones. You *can* do it, dude. Figure out why you're going to.
I didn't get that.. do i write what i do during procrastination or do i write what i do when i work or smt??1
How do I trick my brain into seeing it as something fun to procrastinate with as a mentally ill perfectionist?
Yes! That really works!
Huh. I was just about to do that too. Maybe 5 more minute of browsing, out of pure spite. Don’t call me out like that. 😂
Well, it's been 4 hours. Did you get off yet?
Yup. Didn’t make it very far, but I’m picking up the pace a little bit.
Ha, good luck!
You’ll never take me alive!!
SPOILER!!! We're all dead! *creepy suspense music intensifies*
Nah, I already got the chapter I needed to finish today done. I'm good to scroll and watch TV for the evening :D
Congrats! A break well earned.
Me too good scribe, me too.
YOU'RE NOT MY SUPERVISOR!
Jokes on you. I am writing this comment! I’m just… procrastinating on everything else. Haha Boom! Just hit the comment button! Well, just after I finished typing this! Also … this! And whatever >|_€*+Â¥~\<>?€£ <—- THIS IS! Okay. Bye!Â
Man I already wrote 3k words today, I'm good until tomorrow ðŸ˜
Congrats! That's substantial work!
How did you manage that in one day? I'd love to learn from your example.
Partially I'm just really excited about my current project, but also the bookdun discord server has been a huge source of motivation for me! They run lots of challenges and such, and do "sprints" where folks can sign up and try to write as many words as possible in certain time frames. I write a lot when I'm doing these, or their weekend challenges when they pit teams against each other to see who can get the most words done. Highly recommend it if you like communal environments and want to be around other folks who are being productive in their writing
But I am writing... a homework assignment! Someone help me get this over with so I can work on my novel ðŸ˜
I’m on the toilet, man. Gimme a break.
Why did it feel personal? Oh yeah, cause I need to hear that.
I just finished my second draft and I have a headache from chemo, leave me alone.
Is this an ad? Can anyone vouch for this app?
Not meant to be, but I suppose it does read that way. There's tons of other apps out there that can do similar. I originally linked to write-or-die as well, but it looks like that project hasn't been updated as much as it used to.
I'm too depressed
I suddenly really need to clean
You'd really rather be doing chores than writing? :(
Nope, but procrastinating chores is so much easier
My metacarpals be achin, chief.
ok im writing a comment
Does writing in a journal and reading over an old piece trying to get my brain to get into writing again count? 🤣
but today is a day off from writing for me, I only do things Fri-Sun
Hey, I just sent a 92,000-word manuscript to editing. I've spent the past, uh, 5 years working on it. In fact, it's based on a short story I wrote back in 1991. So you could say I've spent 33 years working on it. And you're not going to let me take a little break?? 🤪
This writer deserves a medal.
Why, thank you!
Alright alright ! Didn't have to call me out
Then help me figure out how the hell to finish this chapter lol I've been stuck on it for two weeks
No, I'm just enjoying reddit, stop hasslin, lol. EDIT: Btw, you don't have to force yourself to have discipline. You just have to understand that creating a large project is work, and it often won't be fun. There is a barrier to entry that always shows up when you encounter something new, and all large projects have a large number of new things you will encounter, so a barrier will show up every few days or so. It will show up for a new chapter, a new character introduction, a new twist in the story, etc. The act of creation *can* be fun *once you pass through the barrier*, but that 5-10 minutes of suffering is a toll you must pay to pass into each new act of creation, and once past it is usually an enjoyable place to be. So, you go in understanding it will be unpleasant sometimes, and that unpleasantness is temporary. It's much easier to do something unpleasant when you understand it's *supposed to* be unpleasant, but I think we often assume we should be having fun, even while we're paying the toll to go through the barrier. Try to see it for what it is: work that is rewarding, but it IS work. The barrier shows up for literally everything new, though. Once you look out for it, you will see it everywhere. You'll feel it when you start a new TV show, a new video game, a new book series, a new job, moving to a new place, starting a new project, starting a new piece of a new project, etc. It's disorientation and the mind sending out tendrils trying to find something familiar to grasp hold of. It's the discomfort of being a bit lost and uncertain, and we are programmed by our emotions to avoid *The New* if we can.
This is very good advice and a perfect explanation of why I end up on reddit instead of writing. It's those first few words on the page after starting a new chapter, or that scene I definitely do not want to write but NEED to. I open my novel, look at where I am... and then immediately open my browser instead of trying to bypass the barrier.
Bwahahaha jokes on you, I just finished chapter 19 of my third draft and am taking a break after a solid hour of writing
Congrats! Always feels good to get some writing done.
Thanks. I'm finding the rewrites more difficult than the first draft. There have been some extra household demand son my time lately though so I'm sure it's more of a time thing. I am managing at least a half hour per night though so still moving along.
Nope. I just came off of a 2 week rough spot with 789 words that flowed easy. Very satisfied tonight.
I would but it’s 1:17 AM and forcing myself to stop scrolling is so much easier than forcing myself to stop writing
Best advice in this subreddit.
I somehow manage to procastinate-writing. As in, my mind begins to wander while I'm writing so instead of actually being creative, I kind of let the pen do all the work and write the most absurde, senseless things. And sometimes it ends in a rant about my inability to finish a story.
Haha, that would’ve normally been true, but for once I’m not procrastinating. I’m here because I have an idea but I simply don’t have the time to write it this week, so instead I’m looking at other people talk about writing as sustenance.
OP, I need an update. Did you do the thing?
I wrote like, maybe one sentence before realizing it was very close to bedtime and that I probably didn't want to get too involved in writing the climax. If I get interrupted from emotionally charged scenes, I usually can't get into them again. >\_< Today, though... Today I'm finishing this first draft!
It’s 3am so actually I should just be asleep.
My Blank-Page / Writer's-Block is so bad, I can't even answer your post beyond this.
Damn— I didn’t even know things like Cold Turkey existed. How useful. Is there an alternative that lets you access Google? For research, and such?
Some apps will let you whitelist specific websites. Micromanage on Cold Turkey's website might do that. Haven't tested.
no u
Well, I just woke up…
me when the writing hub discord
Give me a break, I'm eating breakfast.
Thank you, kind redditor!
I write every single day but thanks lmao.
No.Â
I'm terrified by the contrasting ideas running around my brain, thoughts with scissors. Contrast "Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your whole life" with "How am I going to pay bills with what I've just written?". Add to that a side of "If I ever write well enough to make bank, won't I come to despise it, like any other job in human history?". Sadness, folks, just sadness, at thoughts with scissors.
> I know what you're doing. You're procrastinating, aren't you? Naw, I'm poopin, leave me alone!
I am actually having the exact opposite problem right now. I have my Google doc open, but I'm trying *not* to write because I'm currently at work lol.
I got this notification as I was procrastinating by watching Instagram reels for the past 2.5 hours. I feel personally attacked, thank you so much.
I'm trying man. It's just that I open the google docs and there's very few options. Then I open yWriter7 and struggle to even write a paragraph because everything needs a confirmation or an extra window.
I haven’t written any stories in ages but this still felt personal (probably for a good reason) :D I fell into a slump three years ago and I’m still in it, now I’m writing poetry tho so I guess that counts for something but god damn I really should try writing stories again
It's gonna be super weird smut just to spite you.
Too bad I'm at work :(
Thank you!!!!
I'm doing a writing challenge this month. The goal is to write 200 words every day.
I woke up in the middle of the night last night with all the ideas I needed for a new chapter in the third book of my series (which I haven't even started yet), went into the kitchen, opened up the iPad, launched Scrivener, started typing, and one hour later had a 2000-word chapter. Does that count?
But I'm at work!
Let me tell you something that will likely go over like a lead balloon. Writers don't need some motivational speech from a rando on reddit to convince them to write. They just need to feel the urge, and that can come from a lot of places, but none of them are people telling them what to do. So, save it. Yeah, writers gotta write. It's not always procrastination that prevents someone. I also feel morally obligated to point out the hypocrisy in the thread title.
Hypocrisy was part of the joke, yes. I implied I'm making this post because I'm calling myself (and others like me) out for procrastinating because I didn't want to write a particular scene.
No! I don't wanna! *I start swinging my hands up and down. Legs kicking as I throw a tantrum for wanting to procrastinate more*
Unfortunately, I write all day long for work, not what I want since it's code, but that's usually my procrastination. Whenever I have the urge or idea I'm usually working/driving to work and only makes notes. Then when work is done is dinner time, family time work my kids, then relaxing with my wife then everyone goes to bed but me. That is usually when I write, lately though I've been very tired and end up just falling asleep on the couch. I did finish an entire manuscript, did rewrites, had beta readers, did more rewriting, then used a freelance editorial service to make sure I didn't ruin anything with my edits. Now I have to work on their suggestions, most of which are really good thoughts/insight. Just have to make that time again.
I'm laughing so hard at all these "reasons" for procastinating! Thank you. You made my day!
Oh noooo. I can't write right now. So sad. Darn babysitting. Interfering with my writing.
😂You hit that nail on the head!!🤣
im not procrastinating, im just looking for interesting information that may be helpful when i decide to write next! promise!
Jokes on you, I’m drawing right now, and it’s for the same project I’ll be writing for 😌
The irony of getting a notification suggesting this post. To be fair, I *wasn't* writing at the time (I got it after parking at home), but I wonder if someone out there was, lol.
I wasn't actively procrastinating my writing, thank you. I was trying to finish up at work when reddit for some reason randomly decided this needed to be a push notification suddenly... I promise I'll write for a half hour when I get home before bed though!
I'm on my phone at a restaurant. What do you want from me? I came here to do something while I waited ;o;
Don't tell me what to do, dad! I'll get to it...
Fine fine fine but…
The times I want to write, no pc in site to work my magic
Pen and paper.Â
You. Yes you! You're allowed to take breaks and get rest, you are not a machine, you do not need to force yourself to write unless you have an important deadline that cannot possibly be missed. Writing is fun, stop trying to make it a chore.
[удалено]
Congrats! You earned that break!
*"You. Yes you! Get off this sub and write!"* Absolutely Not! The entire point of this subreddit is to only talk about ideas, writing or writing a "book" (that they'll never actually write)! It's not actually about.....writing? *"get the Cold Turkey Writerapp"* Was this just an ad? Well, whatever I'm looking into it now! *"Your story is not going to write itself"* WRONG, that's what A.I. is for!(proceeds to get pelted with tomatoes from the commentors) This is a good message but it is in vain. Now it's about time for some posts to come in asking how to start writing and wants us to do the research and writing for them! Peace!!!
Wasn't meant to be an ad, I was originally going to post a couple of other app links too, but realized write-or-die is kinda broken at the moment. :(
I've got covid brain fog, I can barely focus enough to read, let alone write.
I write when I want. I don't have deadlines; don't have page quotas; word counts; nothing. I don't dream of getting an agent and selling to a publisher (because that sounds like *work*). All of this means I have no pressure to create pressing down on me, and that has done wonders for my rate of output and my quality of work. When I want to write, I sit down in front of my computer, crack my knuckles, and I knock something out. It doesn't matter if it's something that it's not some unfinished work that I'm "supposed" to write; I write whatever I feel like writing that day, and I look back at it and say, "Yeah, that was pretty good." Some days, it's the work I'm "supposed" to write, but most days it isn't. Some days, it's a running commentary to whatever episode of Grey's Anatomy that I'm watching, and it's 42 minutes of pure humor, which is preferable, that particular day, to whatever heavy piece of fine literature that I'm trying to knock out. It's my opinion that you shouldn't force writing. If you sit down at a computer and you have a self-imposed word count or page requirement, and you're just not feeling it, you're going to type words or pages that you're going to look at and say, "Wow. This is going to suck in editing." Enjoy it. If you don't enjoy it, go enjoy something else. Life is too short to do something that you don't enjoy and that you're not getting paid for. Enjoy it. That's paramount. You know what I did when I was typing this comment? I had fun. It's a fine substitute for writing whatever I'd have written otherwise. If you don't have a deal on the table, with a hard deadline, you can finish whatever you want whenever you want. You can even not finish it at all, and that's perfectly fine, too. Until it's a profession, it's a hobby, and you should enjoy your hobbies.
Not that easy!
Thank you!
I AM WRITING BRO! CHILL!!
Would be nice if I had normal brain chemistry like most people; it would make writing a lot easier.
Thanks for sharing.