Tag Archives: Sam talks Writing

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So I might not have anything else ready to post for prompt month. I have some pieces in progress but it’s looking doubtful that I will finish them. After the “Ezekiel as Ezra” drawing I took a break from the art and shifted gears to revision analysis of this novel draft I wrote a couple of years ago.

Ten days later and I have tossed most of it, have a rewritten outline, and I’m ready to write the second draft.

Except I’m not.

For two days now I have procrastinated and avoided and just not started with the writing. This is something of a pattern with me. If I can do things (and often I can’t do anything) but when I can do things, I can do pre-tasks quite well. I can make lists, I can plan, I can be analytical and do prep work. The rewriting of the outline involved a lot of creative thought too, as once I knew what didn’t work I had to come up with something that I hoped would this time. So it’s not like I can’t totally do creative stuff.

I just can’t word.

It somehow makes it real I think which hits me in the subconscious where I am afraid all the time. I am afraid that it will suck again. I am afraid that I will never be able to fix it to my satisfaction. I am afraid that this will all just be wasted effort. I am also afraid that I will be able to write it ok, that I will make it ‘done’ at some point because I am afraid of what comes next and I’m not sure I’m ready for that. So yeah equally afraid of failure and success. Probably overwhelmed too for good measure with all the things I am trying to remember about how to write it better this time (technique wise, not just the content points).

I’m not just like this with words, I am like this with everything. Prep work is fine but the actual thing? My mind runs a million miles in the other direction. Like I want to get better at art but I have some fairly comfortable bad habits and it’s easier to just roll with that, rather than actually tackle the hard work and practice to really improve. I don’t have to face how crap I am without the crutches I lean on. Plus if I don’t ever seriously knuckle down and try, then I don’t have to find out whether it’s impossible for me to get to the skill level I would like.

My whole life is like this. The second anything gets real, or feels important, or has consequences, I start to run. I was good at school until the actual qualification years came about. Then I stopped doing my homework when it was set, and started scrambling to do it the night before. I stopped putting in extra effort and started doing the bare minimum. My classmates thought it was funny and strange as if they shifted it was the other way, to doing better now it mattered.

So I don’t entirely know what to do with myself. I am trying to be gentle and listen to my feelings rather than push and beat myself up, and send myself into a depression spiral (like normal). As that isn’t a behaviour pattern which serves me. It’s one I have practiced and reinforced for over two decades though so hard habit to break. Plus, intellectually knowing something and actually feeling it are two different things. I am annoyed with myself and I wish I could do better, I wish I could be the person I want and not self-sabotage like this. I hate it.

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There’s AI discourse going around again, and I know I am contributing to it venting here but just ugh.

Like I love what I have seen because every post has been slamming AI and saying it’s theft and yes 100% agree. I like that I am not alone in hating the idea. It’s ironic now but I always had such comfort that a “creative job” would always exist because there would a) always be a need for it (whether I am good enough or marketable is a whole other thing, but humans need art), and b) it wasn’t something that could be done by a machine…. boy do I feel silly now.

But that’s kinda my point a bit. I hate remembering that AI exists that can do art. Yes I know there are logical arguments for why it won’t necessarily replace human creatives but I am cynical I guess. I already have a daily battle that I don’t feel like I will ever be good enough. Now I have to battle an additional mental demon of “what’s the point?” as maybe AI can’t do everything yet but the more the machine feeds, the better it gets, and exponentially so ‘one day’ is soon-ish. No telling how soon but it feels soon.

I am a more practiced writer than I am an artist but I don’t delude myself that I’m that great at either. Chronic fatigue is a real problem for me. Not sure how physical it is, it could just be mental from the depression/anxiety, but it gets in my way regardless. I need to put in a lot of work to improve, and I am so tired. It all feels pointless and a computer is already better than me. And yes I am feeling sorry for myself.

A big part of why I attempt to write and draw is because I have stories/images in my head and I want them to be real. Like most creatives probably, reality never matches my mind and that’s disappointing. Creating is a hard gig and that’s before the AI bullshit. But I keep trying because I want to produce my ideas. So I totally get that will always be there for me. That I can keep trying to make stuff no matter what AI is doing. But I also want to share, to be seen. I also – sometimes- try to dream about a future for myself. In this world where everything is about profit margins, and nobody pays for anything if they don’t have to, if AI can make something ‘serviceable’ in an instant, who would pay a human to make something? Presuming of course I can ever get my work to a level where anyone would ever pay anyway. I realise I can share for free but I also like to pay bills.

So yeah today I am sharing the misery I guess. Because everytime I see talk about AI (even good talk slamming it), it reminds me that it exists and I go in a despairing, demoralised spiral.

I suppose at its core. I so desperately want to be good enough. For reality to come close to matching the imagination. But I am held back by my mental demons and by being so tired. I need to have more stamina. But all I see is this huge mountain of work in front of me. All the practice I need to do to even hope of getting good enough. And it really does feel like time is running out. Who will even care anymore?

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Ok so the shitshow that was Picard Season Three accomplished at least one thing – it completely reawakened my utter love for Seven and Raffi. I mean that had never gone away but last year with the whole moving house thing, I had kinda gone “off the boil” so to speak with my obsessions.

I started with the oneshots. I posted Seven’s. I have a ton of notes for Raffi’s and I will most likely still write and post that.

But it was a slippery slope and I joked about that. It made me remember the fanfic ideas I had walked away from (some part-written on my HD) when I decided to quit fanfic last year. I started musing over whether it would really hurt anything to write a little more fanfic. I love it right? I have such feelings for Saffi and Bering and Wells and my Sanctuary OT3 etc.

So I was circling the idea and it felt pretty inevitable I was going to give in. I wanted to. I could feel the rush of the love I have for these characters.

And then Picard Season Three and more critically the utter feeling of dread I have when I think about a potential Star Trek: Legacy continuing in that same vein.

I’m NOT going to come back to fanfic. I love the characters so much but I am done investing myself in other peoples creations. I am done riding that train of aggravation and disappointment. Yes fanfic is very much “I can fix it” and I am still going to feel emotional when I watch stuff because fanfic or not I will care deeply about what I love. But at this point it feels like trying to fill some kind of endless void. No matter how much fix-it fic I write I can’t erase what made me sad in the first place.

I want to write a better story. I want to invest my creative love in something I can control – my own creation. And by better I mean it might not be (I have very little faith in my own skills) but it will be more aligned with my tastes, put it that way. Better is subjective but it will be better for me and that’s enough.

I feel a sense of peace from this realisation. So I think it might be permanent this time. But life likes to be a surprise so never say never.

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quasi-normalcy:

honey-wine-and-time:

So at its best, Star Trek is a franchise that makes one think. About moral, ethical, philosophical, anthropological, humanistic, and scientific questions.

Which is why I think I found Picard season 3 to be SO frustrating. Everything else aside, it seemed to be a season that *aggressively* didn’t want the audience to think. Not about the simplest questions (where is Troi and Riker’s daughter? Why wouldn’t you contact that other Borg Queen that is your friend? Why are the changelings working with the Borg anyway?) and *certainly* not about anything morally or ethically complicated, about, say, war crimes, or the securitization of the Federation, or the implications of everyone just going along with something as jingoistic as “Frontier Day,” or about whether there might be any solution to a problem besides just killing your enemies. 

There was no thought in that season. It was nostalgic blither that quieted everything queer, that quieted any meaningful growth the TNG characters had beyond TNG (the only exception being the world’s most boring nepo baby who was The Most Important Thing). It didn’t want you to think, it didn’t want you to ask questions, it certainly didn’t want you to imagine a better world.

It was profoundly disappointing. 

And it’s frustrating because it could have talked meaningfully about the implications of, say, the attempted genocide on the Changelings. But it didn’t seem interested in fleshing it out beyond a “Hey, remember that thing from Deep Space Nine? Here it is again!” kind of a way.

(via the-goofball)

#sighing forever#I am so salty#I do think about all this stuff and I think a good chunk of the reason season 3 sucked so much is because the characters didn’t#like that’s storytelling 101 if you introduce something there needs to be a payoff#if there are no consequences then why plot? it doesn’t have any gravity or weight and is ultimately meaningless

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Ok fic is done I think? Need to write up a summary. Decide if I am too tired to make a graphic.

Working title is “Scars of acceptance, finally enough” and I don’t know?

Also debating whether to keep it a oneshot, add a second chapter under the same heading, or just write up a second oneshot.

This one is about Seven but I have thoughts about Raffi that come under the same kind of theme.

I think separately is the way to go but then I will need another title. Titles are hard.

But hey it’s still only oneshots. Slippery slope not yet activated.

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aliveburs:

being insane about your own fics is so embarrassing like i want to scream and cry and shout about them but it’s like. my own guys. 

(via agentmmayy)

#you can just do it anyway#but tbh it doesn’t much help the gnawing feeling of invisibility#only someone else being enthused can do that and that’s like gold dust#but hey gotta get those feelings out somehow#10/10 would recommend rambling about own fics#nobody probably cares and it’s very lonely but if you can’t talk to your own tumblr blog then who?

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Ok I am trying to keep it to oneshot length but /sigh words are on the page.

Saffi fic is happening even though I quit fanfic and am not supposed to be writing it anymore.

Hopefully this will at least enable me to keep resisting the epic novel length ideas. It will help me resist right? It could make it worse.

I just have too many feelings.

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colubrina:

colubrina:

for the love of god, write all the self-indulgent scenes you want.  be utterly  shameless about including every last fantasy.  i know everyone likes to share quotes and quips about how miserably hard writing is, but please please try thinking of it as a joyful act where you get to be a messy human who makes art rather than some pain filled quest for icy perfection.

image

“authenticity looks an awful lot like self-indulgence but it is the only way to find your true audience”

(via lonely-night)

#I like this sentiment very much#I wish it were true but I still feel very lonely and very invisible a lot of the time#screaming into the void#but yes please do create from the heart create with joy and love#you can’t control other people and how they will feel and whether they will let you know if they have even seen it#create for an audience of one and please yourself and you will at least have that

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magicmumu2 asked: 

💌

Thank you for the ask! ❤️

Share something with us about an up-and-coming work (WIP) that has you excited!

I’m not really writing at the moment at all. I’ve been in a bad place mentally for most of this year. I had such big plans too which is gutting. My first priority was to finish my NaNo novel from last year. I do love that story. It’s Book One of a steampunk trilogy. Inspired by Bering and Wells 😉 I’ve not got very far towards finishing it, there’s at least 30k left as it’s going to be long. I think 100k when it’s done. No idea when I will be in the mental space to get back to it.

I have been trying to do art. Though that hasn’t been going all that well either. The Year of the OTP gave me so many ideas, and I got a Leverage Bingo card (more ideas) and I already had so many. Plus with how season three of Picard went I am fairly desperate to make something Saffi related to ease my heart. Seven and Raffi deserved better dammit.

A big problem is actually picking the project. I am better with deadlines. Case in point today I did actually post for the Bering and Wells Big Bang. Unfortunately the Bingo deadline is nearly up and I have mentally written it off already 🙄

So many ideas and so few spoons. Plus I keep putting stuff off in the hope I will develop my skills, so when I do the thing, I might actually do it justice. I had a bunch of Saffi ideas last year that I never drew because I wanted to improve first. A year later (still not improved due to lack of practice as I have not done the courses I said I should do first) and yeeeeah no further forward.

Anyway I was supposed to be saying about what excited me about a WIP and this is a ramble in actually trying to work out what the hell that could be. My apologies.

I suppose what I like about the art WIPs is breaking out the supplies. I have a lot of mental resistance to starting but it is so satisfying seeing something I made on paper. It didn’t exist and then I made marks and now there’s a picture. Probably not a very good picture but it’s still making something from nothing. I get a bit of a thrill from that. It’s like magic 🙂

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purlturtle asked: 

🪄 and 🤲 for the fic writer’s asks please!

what is your post-writing/sharing aftercare? How do you take care of yourself or celebrate yourself when you’ve finished a fic?

I’m not so good at any of this 😂 I’m much better at moving the goal posts. Like I’ll say “finish X” but then once I have there’s another story, another task etc. I never feel like I have done enough, or done it quickly enough, or done it well enough. And that’s just doing the task. Sharing the thing… so much anxiety.

Obviously I make what I make because I personally like it, so I’m the target audience. I can’t say I always enjoy the process because it is often a struggle, a crisis of confidence as I never feel good enough, but I want it to exist. I also hope that it brings somebody joy. For all that I don’t share my work for the attention I am only human and after I post I desperately want some kind of recognition. Screaming into the void is lonely. I worked hard. I want somebody to see that, I guess I just want someone to care. Which is needy probably and not very healthy because it depends on other people.

So to summarise I don’t really deal with this very well at all.

what do YOU get out of writing?

A poison nightmare?

Sorry that’s a little snarky and also more than a little negative. I can’t do so many things. I am a depressed, anxious mess. Writing is simultaneously my hope for a future, and so much pain and fear. I am terrified I can’t do it and I will never be good enough, I will never get to where I need to be. I have lots of ideas and I want to see them realised. I would like to share them with the world. But are they actually any good? Even if the ideas are, will my skill ever be at a level where I can do them justice?

I once said that if I couldn’t write, then I was less than nothing because writing was the only thing I had left. It was my one chance to make a future for myself. But honestly as time goes by the hope gets chipped away and I have no faith left.

Obviously this is written with original work in mind because all of this mess in my head ^^ is why I quit fanfic. I was using fanfic as a crutch. Telling myself that so long as I was doing something, that was better than nothing, but really I was avoiding. Hiding. Not to say that fanfic didn’t bring me joy because of course it did. But it took a hell of a lot of time and effort and as short on spoons as I am, I knew I wasn’t spending them wisely.

Writing is hope, it is dreams, it is life. So what do I get out of writing? Mostly fear, so so much fear, with a side order of self-hate. I want it too much and everytime I fail, it gets harder to conjure up the self-faith to persist and try again.

#not the answer you wanted I am sure but I am always honest