Motivation

>>8952993
Just write. You're seriously overthinking this, choose a subject, or a theme, and write write write!!

>>8952993
>the greatest waste of time you could ever waste was writing because it's basically a time spent on a whim of a chance.

wtf
I think you're just making anxiety ridden excuses for laziness anon. Not to be rude, I do the same thing.
But just write my friend and you will see it is not a waste of time.

>>8953129
This.

>>8953129
>>8953149
>>8953159

To give a bit of context I had an original plan for it and it's ending, having outlined it all out, and as I was mulling that over I decided to put in some filler for more character development--which is definitely needed because, not to sound like I'm fueling my procrastination, without it the characters felt a bit bland in their endeavours. SO I'm currently working that out. I've got the beginning, the end, some of the middle, and currently working on the third 'part' that'll lead into that end.

I'm also in between school and work but again I think I'm using those also as excuses. To add further to my excuses I'm very easily distracted. I'm one of those people that needs to leave the house to write otherwise I'll end up just playing ps4 and saying, 'eh, maybe tomorrow...or the next day.'

>>8952993
>he thinks writing is a waste of time
dude, we are literally on a message bored while we inch closer to death, and all i've got is a few dumb ass pictures saved famalamamasa

>>8953754
I don't think writing is a waste of time, I think that the end result might be though depending how it comes out. But maybe that's my own fault. Maybe I'm thinking too much of the end result rather than treating it like a hobby and not having fun with it.

Eh? I donno, but this thread has made me want to write at least a little bit more. So thanks.

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>>8953704
Hey anon I am this guy >>8953149

I am in school and working too. I make up tons of excuses for why my stories aren't getting done so I relate.

The only thing I can say is, I don't think writing is ever a waste of time and for me the emotional rewards I get from doing it are worth the time investment alone.

I have a few stories awaiting response from magazines and am finishing up a novella I may eventually see an agent about (want to have some stories published first, so they take me seriously) but even if none of that works out I know this time wasn't wasted because the process of creation is meaningful in and of itself.

I have a lot of musician friends who feel the same way about music (though one is going wholeheartedly after it for a career) and I think it makes sense.

I would even say that if I do get published the greatest part won't be money or status but getting to be on the other side of the same sort of relationship I have felt to authors whose books deeply moved me. That sense of understanding has been monumentally important to me and I love to think I may someday provide that for someone else living in entirely different circumstances than my own.

Even just speaking to the present, I have been able to better understand and be understood by friends and colleagues who have read my stories than if I had talked with them for hours.

I feel like I ended up losing a cogent point here but good luck and keep writing! If you want an editor let me know.

>>8954273
(Op here)

Currently I'm trying to write a horror novel that I plan to turn into a three book series. And of course that's all in the air until I do it but that's not my biggest challenge. My biggest challenge is the horror genre itself. I try to keep my pace fast my purposefully using run-on sentences so as to keep the reader more engaged with the running action as well as use generally cheap thrills but thrills all the same. It kinda starts off as a very bantery engagement of a group of very argumentative unlike characters in a late 1800's hospital. Without going into too much detail, they're 'trapped' in there and also have to solve a problem in the room with them. So on and so forth it goes less with this suspenseful tone and more of a Lovecraftian/'The Thing' kind of thriller except from the 'monster's' perspective.

I donno, it's fun to write but I kinda feel like I'm in a writer's block because the main character monster becomes kind of a Gary Stu God-like character, though, with the context of absorbing other people's persona into his own ala The Thing, it feels fitting to make him so.

That's one of the biggest troubles I'm having at the moment, as well as some dialogue issues--as in making them sound less stiff and more real.

Not to toot my own horn, not that it's much of an achievement anyway, but my entire creative writing class loved the prologue of this story that I turn in for an assignment. So I'm pretty happy with it so far.

>>8954337
It sounds good anon, though it sounds like - and it seems as if you know this as well - it will live or die on how you are able to make readers connect in some way to the monster protagonist.
(Not sure if you want him to be likable, engaging, despicable, etc. though I'm sure you have a plan for that)

Dialogue is my largest problem as well, so I don't have much advice beyond consuming lots of good books and film which helps me think in a more 'real' or at least 'pleasant to consume' manner in terms of dialogue.

Good job on the class achievement, just because it's a college course doesn't mean some, if not all, of those people didn't genuinely really like it which is a valid and worthwhile thing to feel pride over.

>>8954359
Im hoping to make him relatable simply by his ties more to humanity than him being a monster. In himself, he's basically just a parasite that finds itself worming into another's mind and takes over, but through that absorbs that persons personality and it carries over to the next, or if another is eaten, it's added into his existing personality. This causes a lot of psychological issues for him simply due to the influx of emotions like, for example, a panic attack that almost makes him shut himself off completely because he's going beyond what he was designed to do originally in that he wasn't made to absorb and absorb and take over rather for one specific task. But he finds himself liking going against his design the more he eats and absorbs. So basically, I hope his monstrous personality is relatable simply in his expressions, his breakdowns, and his conscious moves to act human around others.

Sorta has a teenage angst grab with it now that I write that all out which is good because I hope that's the audience it attracts (as well as older readers since there's: incest, body mutilation, cannibalism, gore galore, political agendas (1800 century racism), and the death of several including one baby). But yeah hopefully that comes across to my readers.

>>8952993
Look, when you write you need to have two things: fun and determination. Motivation will get you nowhere, trust me, I know. I started to write a book roughly 5 months ago and I only got 10k words on it. But as of these past 3 days alone I've contributed nearly 50% of that word count. You need determination to write a book, motivation comes in bursts and are great, but the only thing you can rely on is determination, forcing yourself to write.

The fun part is required because it will otherwise actually feel like work. Though, if you work on something long enough the things that make it fun will vanish, that's why determination is necessary, it will make you finish the book before it becomes completely rotten.

Also, if it's your first book it will most likely be shit. I won't beat about the bush on this one. But think of it like playing a videogame you like or playing football or whatever, the longer you do it the better you'll get as long as you look at your work critically (I mean, do you really think Stephen King's "Carrie" was the first book he ever wrote? Fuck no, years of practice and hard work). When reading books you should ask yourself at times why the author decided to write it as he/she did or when you read an absolutely horrible book how it got published in the first place.

There's a great quote by Nabokov about how people who put off writing for another arbitrary time are just giant hypocrites, reading that gave me a lot of motivation.
I need to get that framed on my desk.

>>8952993
The Dutch writer Mulisch said that what distinguises writers from certain non-writers is that non-writers want to be writers, while writers just are. Writing is what they naturally do.

>>8955647
So writers write and non-writers don't? How profound...

>>8955664
Nope
Writers naturally write
If you have to force yourself to write perhaps it's not meant to be.

>>8954250
>I don't think writing is a waste of time, I think that the end result might be though
Then write you tremendous dongle. You don't stop yourself from bicycling because you won't be going at an Olympic level, and you don't stop playing vidya because you'll never be an esports pro.

Basically, listen to >>8955670 and accept that it doesn't HAVE to turn out good. You can still write.