A Writer's Whine

[mosylu]

 I don't know whether it's allergies or my new job or splitting my energies or too many different browser games or what, but I have two multi-chapter WIPs and I can't seem to do a lick of work on either of them. I know what I want to happen but the words, you guys, the WORDS. They don't want to magically appear on my document. And I have a May the 4th prompt to work on, but same thing. I know what I want to happen but the minute I get in front of a blank page it all disappears in a wisp of smoke.

What's the point of living in the future if you can't instantaneously transplant the story from your brain to the page without any discernible effort on your part, I'd like to know.

Comments

[incognitajones]

I feel this so hard (the allergies too atm).

Just guessing here, but I'd say the new job is probably a big factor? That can take up a lot of brainpower!

[mosylu]

I'm sure that's a huge part of it, because my writing went into the toilet right around the time I started (although family illness, etc) happened around then too so. It doesn't help that I don't really like it, and I spend a lot of my time at work bored because it's a very small and often slow-paced branch, and I'm doing management paperwork instead of the things I like (children's services and programming). I feel like that boredom should be giving me more impetus to write but it seems to be doing the opposite.

[incognitajones]

Yeah. For me it's that the more I write, the more I want to write (a positive feedback loop) and I definitely find that being bored can make it hard to focus on getting started.

[rosaxx50]

It sounds like you have a lot on your plate, so don't be too hard on yourself!

(Brain projection would be... interesting. It would be the most fascinating change to media, though. Can you imagine - impressions being conveyed, emotions, and the plot becoming secondary.)

[mosylu]

I know, I tell myself "Fanfic is what I do for fun, nobody's giving me a grade or a paycheck" but I'm still hard on myself. Sigh.

I think that a mental brain dump would be very trippy really. But gosh wouldn't it be nice not to have do all this WORK?

[elperian]

They don't want to magically appear on my document.

THE OUTRAGE! ;)

[mosylu]

RIGHT? It's like the ungrateful little words don't know who's responsible for their very EXISTENCE, harrumph harrumph

[skitzofreak]

Your brain is refusing to download directly to the page? Hm, might have a faulty connector in your cranial jack. If you want to get that looked at, I know a guy, goes by Morpheus, bit of a tool but does know his future brain-to-screen technology....

In seriousness, it might just be that you're not excited about the fic right now? I usually remedy that by reading about stuff that's adjacent to my fix. Like, if I'm writing about a droid in SW, I go hinting through Tumblr for posts tagged "droids" and see what weirdness or cool art or whatever catches my eye. Or if writing about Cassian Andor, I go trawling thru old meta I liked by some of my fave fanfic authors (like anghraine or ladytharen or, well, you). Good luck with the WIPs! May your brain download smoothly to the page.

[mosylu]

At the time that I wrote this, I was struggling with everything, in every fandom. I've written some fun ficlets lately that seem to have given me a little mojo back. But I do think a lot of it is being in a day job that I . . . hate is a strong word. I don't hate it. But it's not the thing in my profession that I love doing, and that kind of drags everything down right now.

I am reading some more of other peoples' fic so maybe that has helped. :)