(no subject)

[seventhe]

I want to start writing again. I need ideas and help. What system* works for you?

*other than "stop working 50+ hours a week at an exhausting motivation-sucking job you boob"

Comments

[renay]

Morning Pages? :D

"they should be whining, petty, grumpy"

LISTEN I FEEL LIKE IF THIS WORKS FOR ME....YOU HAVE WAY MORE REASONS TO BE PISSED. XD

[seventhe]

I AM NOT SURE THREE PAGES OF THE WORD "FUCK" WILL COUNT

[renay]

I BET THAT LADY WOULD BEG TO DIFFER.

[seventhe]

IN THE MORNING IT WOULD ACTUALLY PROBABLY BE MISSPELLED TOO

LATER I PUBLISH THE MORNING PAGES AS PERFORMANCE ART

[renay]

"FUCK: A THESIS"

DELIVERED IN IAMBIC PENTAMETER

[seventhe]

I JUST CACKLED OUT LOUD AT THAT

I WONDER IF I COULD GET GRANT MONEY FOR THAT THESIS

[renay]

...well, it IS the humanities...

More seriously, book recs:

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

Online resources:
Chuck Wendig's blog. You will understand why I am reccing him to you after you read HOW TO PUSH PAST THE BULLSHIT AND WRITE THAT GODDAMN NOVEL: A VERY SIMPLE NO-FUCKERY WRITING PLAN TO GET SHIT DONE. :D

[seventhe]

THIS SPEAKS TO MY SOUL :)

[owlmoose]

I've been setting monthly goals for several years now, and it's still working, so I keep doing it. One of those goals is always a "days per week" goal, usually six (so I can always have at least one day per week off if I need it) but sometimes five or even four if I know I have a lot of other commitments going on. I don't have any particular requirements for how many words or how much time I spend on it. If I open a document, rearrange one sentence six times, and close it in disgust, it still counts as a writing day.

But I should emphasize that this ONLY works because I give myself permission to fail. Miss one of my writing days that week? The month is not ruined. I'll make it up next week, or I won't, but I can't just say "well, missed that one, might as well give up now". I learned that one the hard way.

[seventhe]

I set a getyourwordsout goal a few years ago and it worked wonderfully. Then I did the same thing the next year and it crumbled. Maybe a "times per week" goal would work better for me.

[owlmoose]

I did gywo for a few years, and it worked great until last year, when I missed the goal completely. When I realized I wasn't going to make it, I took some time to think through what I was getting out of the goal, and the community, and I decided that I had gotten good enough at setting up my own structure that I didn't need it any more. Now, this hasn't been my greatest writing year, but I don't think that's why. And at least I don't have the added stress of getting mad at myself for missing wordcount goals. I am a member of a different writing community -- You Should Be Writing (ushobwri), which has weekly check-ins and regular discussion posts, but all goals are self-directed. It's the successor community to WriSoMiFu, aka "Write Something You Miserable Fuck", which if nothing else had the best writing support group name ever. :)

[seventhe]

I need to figure out what structure works for me. I know a daily effort usually doesn't work, but a weekly effort isn't enough to feel consistent, and it's equal parts a problem with "finding the time" and "inspiration on demand at the exact moment I have found the time"

[owlmoose]

You can't hang it on inspiration, though. If you want to be serious about giving yourself a writing habit, you cannot wait for inspiration, or expect it to strike. Once you've set aside or found time, you just have to decide that you're going to put words down. Even if they suck, even if you hate them. You can go back and fix them later. Sometimes, just the act of getting started will give me ideas and get me inspired. But not always, and I've learned not to count on it. Even if they are terrible words, it's still words I hadn't written down before, and even the worst draft gives me more to work with than a blank screen.

I know it's not systems but it's maybe motivations? idk, i'm already at OT this week

[whitemage]

Once a week I choose someone who is irritating the everloving fuck out of me, fictionalize them, and kill them horribly.*

*Most of them I delete out of guilt instead of posting anywhere

Also, my son rewrites his life. Like he starts with something like "There was a 6 year old boy whose parents were really boring..." and then writes what he wants to happen instead of what is happening.

I say 'writes' like he has a grasp of English when he spells like an illiterate medieval peasant but if that isn't genius, I don't know what is. (On rewriting your life the way you want. We're still working on caring that letters have meaning and that we've quasi-agreed on certain spellings of those letters to form words.)

Re: I know it's not systems but it's maybe motivations? idk, i'm already at OT this week

[seventhe]

Both of these ideas are pure gold.

[flonnebonne]

When I was in a post-NaNo, post-Christmas, lazy-ass funk, I gave my brother five bucks and told him he would get to keep it if I didn't write 500 words a day for a couple weeks. I am such a cheapskate that five dollars was enough to motivate me :D

I don't pay my brother anymore, because word quotas don't work well for me (I need some days where I just generate ideas, not words), but at that time it was good enough to kick me into writing mode again. Now the ideas just come and I find the time as I can. Being able to type out a few words here and there on my phone is helpful. I am learning the ways of the synch.

[novel_machinist]

Small goals work really well for me. Like "I will write 200 words a day" if I can't do that, I won't feel bad, you know? I know that E likes to do a twitterfic a day, but it's the same thing. I don't really use a system cause I get bogged down on making PLANS and LISTS and not you know, actually writing. Cleaning myself a little space, having no distractions and just doing it is what I need.

[sathari]

Hmmm... well, not a system, but one thing I do to make it easier for me to write is that on my home computer, I always, always leave my word-processing software up, with the stories that I'm working on open--- makes it easier to get started working on whichever, because there's not all the fiddling around with getting the program running, finding the file to open, etc. So if you've got a work in progress that you'd like to get back to, having it sitting there open in the background might make it easier to just sit down and write something on it? (She said, as she noodled around on the interwebz instead of writing, lol.)

[pict]

Find a popular, skilled author.

Eat them to gain their powers.

[seventhe]

This plan seems the easiest. And the most delicious!

[ser_pounce_alot]

i try to think about horrible things i find awesome (like twincest and dub-con) and then hope that i will get excited and write something.

notice that i haven't written more than 5000 words in eight months, so... LMAO i obviously fell completely off the writing wagon. i don't know how to get back on.