snowflake challenge #3

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In your own space, Scream Into the Void. Get it all out.

Okay, I'm actually bad at this, at least online, because I always feel the need to correct myself at the end or be all "but it's not that bad" because I'm doing the whole "in the grand scheme of things", comparing it to what I feel are real problems. With other people, I will definitely be like "just because other people have it worse doesn't mean your problems are less valid" but somehow the brain doesn't really let you extend that kind of sympathy to yourself. Funny how that works.

Since I'm avoiding real life/politics talk and *gestures to the state of the world* all that, my gripe is currently my inability to write. I want to write fic, I have to write fic with the deadlines I have (both real and self imposed), but somehow, when I stare at a word document, I'm getting nothing! It's not like I don't know what to write either. I even have ideas on what I want to do or where I want to go with my stories, but the scenes that sound so great in my head will just not come out. I barely wrote in December and I have nothing so far this month. It's just extremely frustrating to want to want to do something yet not be able to.

I thought maybe stepping back for a few days and not thinking about it would help, but it's just a few more days that I'm not writing and it's not any easier. I may just have to go back into writing sprints and force it out but I wish it could come more naturally. I miss when it came more naturally.

If anyone has any advice on what they do in similar situations, please feel free to share!

Comments

[silveradept]

I'm reminded of the bit in Check Please! where Jack gets Bitty to write his thesis by poking him in the arguments and then letting Bitty blow up his phone with texts about how wrong he is about all of it. It may not be a perfect match for you, but if you have a friend who you can complain in long form at about all the things you want to write but we're having trouble with and have them ask prodding questions in return, maybe all you'll have to do is save your chat log and then polish it up?

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Thank you for the suggestion! That is good advice and back in my first run in fandom, I did used to have a beta I did this with, or at least went through story ideas and talked about the fic with but unfortunately, not as much these days.

[silveradept]

Ah, that's unfortunate. Perhaps you can find a writing partner somewhere to do sprints with.

There's been plenty of other good advice around as well about writing first and editing later, but if you are someone with dice around, a prominent, prolific, and published author once shared that if you have a die, you can use it as a word tracker. Every hundred words, turn the die so that the next number is up. Then you can see progress. (And double sixes is 3600 words, even if it didn't feel like it.) Or you can use some of the tools like Written? Kitten! to give you adorable imagery while you put down words.

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It is one of the downsides your main fandom being semi dead. I do have some friends who are still in it and thankfully I'm apart of some Discord servers that run sprints which helps. :D

Thank you for the suggestions! The word counter is a good idea and I haven't read of Written? Kitten! but it sounds adorable so I will definitely check it out. :D