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z83xgm | writing_train | 0.93 | Need advice about an editor I hired Hi all I joined aFacebook writing run by an author of multiple well-received novels. In his group page, that author highly recommended a freelance editor that he claimed he uses. I sent her a couple of thousand words sample of my writing, and we agreed that I pay her upfront 810 USD for two rounds of edits: a content edit and a proofread. I sent her the 50k manuscript on July 26th, and after going cold and a couple of reminders, she sent it back with only the below comments, and they were all made a day before she sent them according to Microsoft Word track changes and review software. I only got the first round on October 13th, and now I sent her the revised manuscript for the second round, and she has gone silent. She won’t confirm receiving it even though I sent it to her on November 19th and then reminded her to verify that she received it on November 23rd and again Nov 28th and until now, I have not heard from her. Is this normal for freelance editors? Should I not have paid her until after she finished? Her tone and response time were utterly different before payment. I’m just frustrated and thought I would ask here if there is anything I could do about it. I should have probably gone for someone highly reviewed on Fivver or Upwork. These are her only “content edits”. I send them because they seem scarce and hasty. The only content edits for a 50k manuscript: • I don't get a sense of the setting, location, time of year, etc. Readers need to know where they are when they begin a story. This part is narrative so it's not all that important but it might be a good idea to mention where they live. In the next scene, we definitely need some description of the setting. We also need some of the five senses. • 'there are' and words like 'about' are weak filter words that make the writing less active. • Again, we need some description of the setting and senses. I won't keep mentioning this, but as you revise, you might want to be aware and work on layering some of that in so readers really feel like the are there. • It's best not to use these types of dialogue tags. They are 'telling.' • As often as you can, rather than using tags like this, it's better to have some action, gestures, emotion, etc. It's not as 'telling' and it helps paint a vivid picture. • We need to stay in third person. • I won't keep correcting these. I'll leave that to you so you get the practice and remember more to avoid tense slips in the future. When I do the next round, I'll watch for any you might have missed. • I'm noticing that there is no emotion of the characters. We are getting the events that unfold but not any reactions or how the characters feel about it. • I would suggest having the dialogue 'shown' instead of just telling readers what a character said. I noticed a lot of that earlier as well. Sometimes in small increments it is okay, but I think for the most part, it's better to actually show the dialogue. • Why did you start using 'Reema' instead of 'me'? • Again, wondering about using her user name instead of 'me'? • This is all very good and makes her very sympathetic. Great job at showing the realism of what she would be thinking and going through. • I have corrected many of these, but a character's action should always be in the same paragraph as their dialogue. • It seems like she'd be anxious to hear what he has to say, so maybe she'll try to press him on the subject? At least a little? • How does this feel to her? Does she like it? Is she repulsed? • Are these lyrics to an actual song? If so, then it's most likely a copyright violation. • I don't understand this part? | iyaavqm | iya48rc | 1,669,761,108 | 1,669,758,405 | 52 | 16 | Going silent and making you chase her down are huge red flags. If your writing is crap she should have said it was crap right away. No excuse. Not providing a useful service for you. | Some random thoughts: * $810 for both "content" (whatever that is) and proof on 50k is VERY affordable. Like, if an editor charged that for an acceptable quality of work, I'd be concerned that they're not earning a livable hourly wage. Sometimes people charge that low because they're living in a lower cost of living country, or they're very new and untested, or it's a scam. * Did you discuss a scope of work for these edits? e.g. wtf is a content edit exactly? Did you agree on what that would entail? Are these terms of reference written down anywhere? * Payment structure varies - could be half now half later, could be all later, could be all now - but what a lot of editors do before taking a project of this size is a sample edit on e.g. the first chapter (could be paid or unpaid). * Timeline expectations is something that you'd typically discuss upfront, again, but generally ghosting for months isn't normal. * In terms of what recourse you have, you can complain to the author who recommended her or post about her on their facebook. You can request a chargeback if you paid through Paypal or a credit card. If y'all are in the same jurisdiction and your jurisdiction allows it, you can also take her to small claims court, but this is going to be more hassle than it's worth. I'd write the $800 off. The content edits IMO are pretty thin even for a free beta reader. But, you know, chalk it up to an expensive lesson. Next time you'll know not to throw your money around. | 1 | 2,703 | 3.25 | ||
z83xgm | writing_train | 0.93 | Need advice about an editor I hired Hi all I joined aFacebook writing run by an author of multiple well-received novels. In his group page, that author highly recommended a freelance editor that he claimed he uses. I sent her a couple of thousand words sample of my writing, and we agreed that I pay her upfront 810 USD for two rounds of edits: a content edit and a proofread. I sent her the 50k manuscript on July 26th, and after going cold and a couple of reminders, she sent it back with only the below comments, and they were all made a day before she sent them according to Microsoft Word track changes and review software. I only got the first round on October 13th, and now I sent her the revised manuscript for the second round, and she has gone silent. She won’t confirm receiving it even though I sent it to her on November 19th and then reminded her to verify that she received it on November 23rd and again Nov 28th and until now, I have not heard from her. Is this normal for freelance editors? Should I not have paid her until after she finished? Her tone and response time were utterly different before payment. I’m just frustrated and thought I would ask here if there is anything I could do about it. I should have probably gone for someone highly reviewed on Fivver or Upwork. These are her only “content edits”. I send them because they seem scarce and hasty. The only content edits for a 50k manuscript: • I don't get a sense of the setting, location, time of year, etc. Readers need to know where they are when they begin a story. This part is narrative so it's not all that important but it might be a good idea to mention where they live. In the next scene, we definitely need some description of the setting. We also need some of the five senses. • 'there are' and words like 'about' are weak filter words that make the writing less active. • Again, we need some description of the setting and senses. I won't keep mentioning this, but as you revise, you might want to be aware and work on layering some of that in so readers really feel like the are there. • It's best not to use these types of dialogue tags. They are 'telling.' • As often as you can, rather than using tags like this, it's better to have some action, gestures, emotion, etc. It's not as 'telling' and it helps paint a vivid picture. • We need to stay in third person. • I won't keep correcting these. I'll leave that to you so you get the practice and remember more to avoid tense slips in the future. When I do the next round, I'll watch for any you might have missed. • I'm noticing that there is no emotion of the characters. We are getting the events that unfold but not any reactions or how the characters feel about it. • I would suggest having the dialogue 'shown' instead of just telling readers what a character said. I noticed a lot of that earlier as well. Sometimes in small increments it is okay, but I think for the most part, it's better to actually show the dialogue. • Why did you start using 'Reema' instead of 'me'? • Again, wondering about using her user name instead of 'me'? • This is all very good and makes her very sympathetic. Great job at showing the realism of what she would be thinking and going through. • I have corrected many of these, but a character's action should always be in the same paragraph as their dialogue. • It seems like she'd be anxious to hear what he has to say, so maybe she'll try to press him on the subject? At least a little? • How does this feel to her? Does she like it? Is she repulsed? • Are these lyrics to an actual song? If so, then it's most likely a copyright violation. • I don't understand this part? | iya7sdi | iyaavqm | 1,669,759,822 | 1,669,761,108 | 9 | 52 | Whenever something like this happens to me I just assume I did something to offend them. Lol. It's possible based off of their comments that they're used to working with professional and experienced authors. If your writing does have the problems they've started then you're a newer writer. If these things are true, then it probably wasn't the best time to hire a professional editor. It's not seen as professional to tell an author that, so that could be why they ghosted you. It's probably best to focus on honing your craft and getting over the beginner mistakes before spending money on an editor. I also want to note that I say this as a beginner working through these same problems myself and not as some industry professional. | Going silent and making you chase her down are huge red flags. If your writing is crap she should have said it was crap right away. No excuse. Not providing a useful service for you. | 0 | 1,286 | 5.777778 | ||
z83xgm | writing_train | 0.93 | Need advice about an editor I hired Hi all I joined aFacebook writing run by an author of multiple well-received novels. In his group page, that author highly recommended a freelance editor that he claimed he uses. I sent her a couple of thousand words sample of my writing, and we agreed that I pay her upfront 810 USD for two rounds of edits: a content edit and a proofread. I sent her the 50k manuscript on July 26th, and after going cold and a couple of reminders, she sent it back with only the below comments, and they were all made a day before she sent them according to Microsoft Word track changes and review software. I only got the first round on October 13th, and now I sent her the revised manuscript for the second round, and she has gone silent. She won’t confirm receiving it even though I sent it to her on November 19th and then reminded her to verify that she received it on November 23rd and again Nov 28th and until now, I have not heard from her. Is this normal for freelance editors? Should I not have paid her until after she finished? Her tone and response time were utterly different before payment. I’m just frustrated and thought I would ask here if there is anything I could do about it. I should have probably gone for someone highly reviewed on Fivver or Upwork. These are her only “content edits”. I send them because they seem scarce and hasty. The only content edits for a 50k manuscript: • I don't get a sense of the setting, location, time of year, etc. Readers need to know where they are when they begin a story. This part is narrative so it's not all that important but it might be a good idea to mention where they live. In the next scene, we definitely need some description of the setting. We also need some of the five senses. • 'there are' and words like 'about' are weak filter words that make the writing less active. • Again, we need some description of the setting and senses. I won't keep mentioning this, but as you revise, you might want to be aware and work on layering some of that in so readers really feel like the are there. • It's best not to use these types of dialogue tags. They are 'telling.' • As often as you can, rather than using tags like this, it's better to have some action, gestures, emotion, etc. It's not as 'telling' and it helps paint a vivid picture. • We need to stay in third person. • I won't keep correcting these. I'll leave that to you so you get the practice and remember more to avoid tense slips in the future. When I do the next round, I'll watch for any you might have missed. • I'm noticing that there is no emotion of the characters. We are getting the events that unfold but not any reactions or how the characters feel about it. • I would suggest having the dialogue 'shown' instead of just telling readers what a character said. I noticed a lot of that earlier as well. Sometimes in small increments it is okay, but I think for the most part, it's better to actually show the dialogue. • Why did you start using 'Reema' instead of 'me'? • Again, wondering about using her user name instead of 'me'? • This is all very good and makes her very sympathetic. Great job at showing the realism of what she would be thinking and going through. • I have corrected many of these, but a character's action should always be in the same paragraph as their dialogue. • It seems like she'd be anxious to hear what he has to say, so maybe she'll try to press him on the subject? At least a little? • How does this feel to her? Does she like it? Is she repulsed? • Are these lyrics to an actual song? If so, then it's most likely a copyright violation. • I don't understand this part? | iya9s8p | iyaavqm | 1,669,760,647 | 1,669,761,108 | 5 | 52 | Sounds like you got exactly what you paid for. | Going silent and making you chase her down are huge red flags. If your writing is crap she should have said it was crap right away. No excuse. Not providing a useful service for you. | 0 | 461 | 10.4 | ||
z83xgm | writing_train | 0.93 | Need advice about an editor I hired Hi all I joined aFacebook writing run by an author of multiple well-received novels. In his group page, that author highly recommended a freelance editor that he claimed he uses. I sent her a couple of thousand words sample of my writing, and we agreed that I pay her upfront 810 USD for two rounds of edits: a content edit and a proofread. I sent her the 50k manuscript on July 26th, and after going cold and a couple of reminders, she sent it back with only the below comments, and they were all made a day before she sent them according to Microsoft Word track changes and review software. I only got the first round on October 13th, and now I sent her the revised manuscript for the second round, and she has gone silent. She won’t confirm receiving it even though I sent it to her on November 19th and then reminded her to verify that she received it on November 23rd and again Nov 28th and until now, I have not heard from her. Is this normal for freelance editors? Should I not have paid her until after she finished? Her tone and response time were utterly different before payment. I’m just frustrated and thought I would ask here if there is anything I could do about it. I should have probably gone for someone highly reviewed on Fivver or Upwork. These are her only “content edits”. I send them because they seem scarce and hasty. The only content edits for a 50k manuscript: • I don't get a sense of the setting, location, time of year, etc. Readers need to know where they are when they begin a story. This part is narrative so it's not all that important but it might be a good idea to mention where they live. In the next scene, we definitely need some description of the setting. We also need some of the five senses. • 'there are' and words like 'about' are weak filter words that make the writing less active. • Again, we need some description of the setting and senses. I won't keep mentioning this, but as you revise, you might want to be aware and work on layering some of that in so readers really feel like the are there. • It's best not to use these types of dialogue tags. They are 'telling.' • As often as you can, rather than using tags like this, it's better to have some action, gestures, emotion, etc. It's not as 'telling' and it helps paint a vivid picture. • We need to stay in third person. • I won't keep correcting these. I'll leave that to you so you get the practice and remember more to avoid tense slips in the future. When I do the next round, I'll watch for any you might have missed. • I'm noticing that there is no emotion of the characters. We are getting the events that unfold but not any reactions or how the characters feel about it. • I would suggest having the dialogue 'shown' instead of just telling readers what a character said. I noticed a lot of that earlier as well. Sometimes in small increments it is okay, but I think for the most part, it's better to actually show the dialogue. • Why did you start using 'Reema' instead of 'me'? • Again, wondering about using her user name instead of 'me'? • This is all very good and makes her very sympathetic. Great job at showing the realism of what she would be thinking and going through. • I have corrected many of these, but a character's action should always be in the same paragraph as their dialogue. • It seems like she'd be anxious to hear what he has to say, so maybe she'll try to press him on the subject? At least a little? • How does this feel to her? Does she like it? Is she repulsed? • Are these lyrics to an actual song? If so, then it's most likely a copyright violation. • I don't understand this part? | iy9x2h7 | iya9ee4 | 1,669,755,676 | 1,669,760,487 | 14 | 29 | I can't tell you about freelance editors specifically, but for freelance work in general the nugget of wisdom I usually hear is to pay half now, then the other half when the work is done. according to your agreement. It's the most fair for both parties involved. While yes, there is some onus on you to check and verify their merits, I don't blame you for hiring them since they already have a relationship with a good author like you said. However, it sounds to me like they focus more on their stable income, published and known authors, and put lesser-known or emerging authors on the backburner. Now that's the nice way of looking at it, because it could also be some snobbishness that she thinks you might not be important enough because putting jobs aside that were already paid for in the timeframe you mentioned is highly unprofessional and it's not like she's a novice at it. | Reading between the lines: your work was very rough and needs a lot of developmental/craft work, and she struggled with the read/edit. I would guess she opened up the revised you sent her, saw it hadn't changed substantively, and is dreading having to read it again. I know that's not likely what you wanted to hear, but that's my read on it. I would take it as a lesson learned and move forward. That said, $810 is very cheap for an edit, though if you consider the content edit as provided as a more of a paid beta and the proofread as a once-over (proofread, not copy edit), it's a price that makes more sense if this editor is accustomed to more polished manuscripts. It's okay if you're a newer writer, but generally it doesn't make sense to pay for a professional editor on rougher work. Moreover, you sent it to her and then emailed multiple times during the American Thanksgiving holiday. She was probably celebrating with family and didn't want to deal with work. Honestly given the first round comments, I'd say instead of going back to this editor you should be seeking out peer-group beta readers and working on your craft/more revision. A proofread is a final stage before publishing--it doesn't sound like you're ready to publish? Though I bet if you asked her for a partial refund to forego the proofread entirely, she'd give it to you just to get you out of her hair. So if you want money back, that might be the way to go. | 0 | 4,811 | 2.071429 | ||
z83xgm | writing_train | 0.93 | Need advice about an editor I hired Hi all I joined aFacebook writing run by an author of multiple well-received novels. In his group page, that author highly recommended a freelance editor that he claimed he uses. I sent her a couple of thousand words sample of my writing, and we agreed that I pay her upfront 810 USD for two rounds of edits: a content edit and a proofread. I sent her the 50k manuscript on July 26th, and after going cold and a couple of reminders, she sent it back with only the below comments, and they were all made a day before she sent them according to Microsoft Word track changes and review software. I only got the first round on October 13th, and now I sent her the revised manuscript for the second round, and she has gone silent. She won’t confirm receiving it even though I sent it to her on November 19th and then reminded her to verify that she received it on November 23rd and again Nov 28th and until now, I have not heard from her. Is this normal for freelance editors? Should I not have paid her until after she finished? Her tone and response time were utterly different before payment. I’m just frustrated and thought I would ask here if there is anything I could do about it. I should have probably gone for someone highly reviewed on Fivver or Upwork. These are her only “content edits”. I send them because they seem scarce and hasty. The only content edits for a 50k manuscript: • I don't get a sense of the setting, location, time of year, etc. Readers need to know where they are when they begin a story. This part is narrative so it's not all that important but it might be a good idea to mention where they live. In the next scene, we definitely need some description of the setting. We also need some of the five senses. • 'there are' and words like 'about' are weak filter words that make the writing less active. • Again, we need some description of the setting and senses. I won't keep mentioning this, but as you revise, you might want to be aware and work on layering some of that in so readers really feel like the are there. • It's best not to use these types of dialogue tags. They are 'telling.' • As often as you can, rather than using tags like this, it's better to have some action, gestures, emotion, etc. It's not as 'telling' and it helps paint a vivid picture. • We need to stay in third person. • I won't keep correcting these. I'll leave that to you so you get the practice and remember more to avoid tense slips in the future. When I do the next round, I'll watch for any you might have missed. • I'm noticing that there is no emotion of the characters. We are getting the events that unfold but not any reactions or how the characters feel about it. • I would suggest having the dialogue 'shown' instead of just telling readers what a character said. I noticed a lot of that earlier as well. Sometimes in small increments it is okay, but I think for the most part, it's better to actually show the dialogue. • Why did you start using 'Reema' instead of 'me'? • Again, wondering about using her user name instead of 'me'? • This is all very good and makes her very sympathetic. Great job at showing the realism of what she would be thinking and going through. • I have corrected many of these, but a character's action should always be in the same paragraph as their dialogue. • It seems like she'd be anxious to hear what he has to say, so maybe she'll try to press him on the subject? At least a little? • How does this feel to her? Does she like it? Is she repulsed? • Are these lyrics to an actual song? If so, then it's most likely a copyright violation. • I don't understand this part? | iya9ee4 | iya48rc | 1,669,760,487 | 1,669,758,405 | 29 | 16 | Reading between the lines: your work was very rough and needs a lot of developmental/craft work, and she struggled with the read/edit. I would guess she opened up the revised you sent her, saw it hadn't changed substantively, and is dreading having to read it again. I know that's not likely what you wanted to hear, but that's my read on it. I would take it as a lesson learned and move forward. That said, $810 is very cheap for an edit, though if you consider the content edit as provided as a more of a paid beta and the proofread as a once-over (proofread, not copy edit), it's a price that makes more sense if this editor is accustomed to more polished manuscripts. It's okay if you're a newer writer, but generally it doesn't make sense to pay for a professional editor on rougher work. Moreover, you sent it to her and then emailed multiple times during the American Thanksgiving holiday. She was probably celebrating with family and didn't want to deal with work. Honestly given the first round comments, I'd say instead of going back to this editor you should be seeking out peer-group beta readers and working on your craft/more revision. A proofread is a final stage before publishing--it doesn't sound like you're ready to publish? Though I bet if you asked her for a partial refund to forego the proofread entirely, she'd give it to you just to get you out of her hair. So if you want money back, that might be the way to go. | Some random thoughts: * $810 for both "content" (whatever that is) and proof on 50k is VERY affordable. Like, if an editor charged that for an acceptable quality of work, I'd be concerned that they're not earning a livable hourly wage. Sometimes people charge that low because they're living in a lower cost of living country, or they're very new and untested, or it's a scam. * Did you discuss a scope of work for these edits? e.g. wtf is a content edit exactly? Did you agree on what that would entail? Are these terms of reference written down anywhere? * Payment structure varies - could be half now half later, could be all later, could be all now - but what a lot of editors do before taking a project of this size is a sample edit on e.g. the first chapter (could be paid or unpaid). * Timeline expectations is something that you'd typically discuss upfront, again, but generally ghosting for months isn't normal. * In terms of what recourse you have, you can complain to the author who recommended her or post about her on their facebook. You can request a chargeback if you paid through Paypal or a credit card. If y'all are in the same jurisdiction and your jurisdiction allows it, you can also take her to small claims court, but this is going to be more hassle than it's worth. I'd write the $800 off. The content edits IMO are pretty thin even for a free beta reader. But, you know, chalk it up to an expensive lesson. Next time you'll know not to throw your money around. | 1 | 2,082 | 1.8125 | ||
z83xgm | writing_train | 0.93 | Need advice about an editor I hired Hi all I joined aFacebook writing run by an author of multiple well-received novels. In his group page, that author highly recommended a freelance editor that he claimed he uses. I sent her a couple of thousand words sample of my writing, and we agreed that I pay her upfront 810 USD for two rounds of edits: a content edit and a proofread. I sent her the 50k manuscript on July 26th, and after going cold and a couple of reminders, she sent it back with only the below comments, and they were all made a day before she sent them according to Microsoft Word track changes and review software. I only got the first round on October 13th, and now I sent her the revised manuscript for the second round, and she has gone silent. She won’t confirm receiving it even though I sent it to her on November 19th and then reminded her to verify that she received it on November 23rd and again Nov 28th and until now, I have not heard from her. Is this normal for freelance editors? Should I not have paid her until after she finished? Her tone and response time were utterly different before payment. I’m just frustrated and thought I would ask here if there is anything I could do about it. I should have probably gone for someone highly reviewed on Fivver or Upwork. These are her only “content edits”. I send them because they seem scarce and hasty. The only content edits for a 50k manuscript: • I don't get a sense of the setting, location, time of year, etc. Readers need to know where they are when they begin a story. This part is narrative so it's not all that important but it might be a good idea to mention where they live. In the next scene, we definitely need some description of the setting. We also need some of the five senses. • 'there are' and words like 'about' are weak filter words that make the writing less active. • Again, we need some description of the setting and senses. I won't keep mentioning this, but as you revise, you might want to be aware and work on layering some of that in so readers really feel like the are there. • It's best not to use these types of dialogue tags. They are 'telling.' • As often as you can, rather than using tags like this, it's better to have some action, gestures, emotion, etc. It's not as 'telling' and it helps paint a vivid picture. • We need to stay in third person. • I won't keep correcting these. I'll leave that to you so you get the practice and remember more to avoid tense slips in the future. When I do the next round, I'll watch for any you might have missed. • I'm noticing that there is no emotion of the characters. We are getting the events that unfold but not any reactions or how the characters feel about it. • I would suggest having the dialogue 'shown' instead of just telling readers what a character said. I noticed a lot of that earlier as well. Sometimes in small increments it is okay, but I think for the most part, it's better to actually show the dialogue. • Why did you start using 'Reema' instead of 'me'? • Again, wondering about using her user name instead of 'me'? • This is all very good and makes her very sympathetic. Great job at showing the realism of what she would be thinking and going through. • I have corrected many of these, but a character's action should always be in the same paragraph as their dialogue. • It seems like she'd be anxious to hear what he has to say, so maybe she'll try to press him on the subject? At least a little? • How does this feel to her? Does she like it? Is she repulsed? • Are these lyrics to an actual song? If so, then it's most likely a copyright violation. • I don't understand this part? | iya9ee4 | iya7sdi | 1,669,760,487 | 1,669,759,822 | 29 | 9 | Reading between the lines: your work was very rough and needs a lot of developmental/craft work, and she struggled with the read/edit. I would guess she opened up the revised you sent her, saw it hadn't changed substantively, and is dreading having to read it again. I know that's not likely what you wanted to hear, but that's my read on it. I would take it as a lesson learned and move forward. That said, $810 is very cheap for an edit, though if you consider the content edit as provided as a more of a paid beta and the proofread as a once-over (proofread, not copy edit), it's a price that makes more sense if this editor is accustomed to more polished manuscripts. It's okay if you're a newer writer, but generally it doesn't make sense to pay for a professional editor on rougher work. Moreover, you sent it to her and then emailed multiple times during the American Thanksgiving holiday. She was probably celebrating with family and didn't want to deal with work. Honestly given the first round comments, I'd say instead of going back to this editor you should be seeking out peer-group beta readers and working on your craft/more revision. A proofread is a final stage before publishing--it doesn't sound like you're ready to publish? Though I bet if you asked her for a partial refund to forego the proofread entirely, she'd give it to you just to get you out of her hair. So if you want money back, that might be the way to go. | Whenever something like this happens to me I just assume I did something to offend them. Lol. It's possible based off of their comments that they're used to working with professional and experienced authors. If your writing does have the problems they've started then you're a newer writer. If these things are true, then it probably wasn't the best time to hire a professional editor. It's not seen as professional to tell an author that, so that could be why they ghosted you. It's probably best to focus on honing your craft and getting over the beginner mistakes before spending money on an editor. I also want to note that I say this as a beginner working through these same problems myself and not as some industry professional. | 1 | 665 | 3.222222 | ||
z83xgm | writing_train | 0.93 | Need advice about an editor I hired Hi all I joined aFacebook writing run by an author of multiple well-received novels. In his group page, that author highly recommended a freelance editor that he claimed he uses. I sent her a couple of thousand words sample of my writing, and we agreed that I pay her upfront 810 USD for two rounds of edits: a content edit and a proofread. I sent her the 50k manuscript on July 26th, and after going cold and a couple of reminders, she sent it back with only the below comments, and they were all made a day before she sent them according to Microsoft Word track changes and review software. I only got the first round on October 13th, and now I sent her the revised manuscript for the second round, and she has gone silent. She won’t confirm receiving it even though I sent it to her on November 19th and then reminded her to verify that she received it on November 23rd and again Nov 28th and until now, I have not heard from her. Is this normal for freelance editors? Should I not have paid her until after she finished? Her tone and response time were utterly different before payment. I’m just frustrated and thought I would ask here if there is anything I could do about it. I should have probably gone for someone highly reviewed on Fivver or Upwork. These are her only “content edits”. I send them because they seem scarce and hasty. The only content edits for a 50k manuscript: • I don't get a sense of the setting, location, time of year, etc. Readers need to know where they are when they begin a story. This part is narrative so it's not all that important but it might be a good idea to mention where they live. In the next scene, we definitely need some description of the setting. We also need some of the five senses. • 'there are' and words like 'about' are weak filter words that make the writing less active. • Again, we need some description of the setting and senses. I won't keep mentioning this, but as you revise, you might want to be aware and work on layering some of that in so readers really feel like the are there. • It's best not to use these types of dialogue tags. They are 'telling.' • As often as you can, rather than using tags like this, it's better to have some action, gestures, emotion, etc. It's not as 'telling' and it helps paint a vivid picture. • We need to stay in third person. • I won't keep correcting these. I'll leave that to you so you get the practice and remember more to avoid tense slips in the future. When I do the next round, I'll watch for any you might have missed. • I'm noticing that there is no emotion of the characters. We are getting the events that unfold but not any reactions or how the characters feel about it. • I would suggest having the dialogue 'shown' instead of just telling readers what a character said. I noticed a lot of that earlier as well. Sometimes in small increments it is okay, but I think for the most part, it's better to actually show the dialogue. • Why did you start using 'Reema' instead of 'me'? • Again, wondering about using her user name instead of 'me'? • This is all very good and makes her very sympathetic. Great job at showing the realism of what she would be thinking and going through. • I have corrected many of these, but a character's action should always be in the same paragraph as their dialogue. • It seems like she'd be anxious to hear what he has to say, so maybe she'll try to press him on the subject? At least a little? • How does this feel to her? Does she like it? Is she repulsed? • Are these lyrics to an actual song? If so, then it's most likely a copyright violation. • I don't understand this part? | iya48rc | iy9x2h7 | 1,669,758,405 | 1,669,755,676 | 16 | 14 | Some random thoughts: * $810 for both "content" (whatever that is) and proof on 50k is VERY affordable. Like, if an editor charged that for an acceptable quality of work, I'd be concerned that they're not earning a livable hourly wage. Sometimes people charge that low because they're living in a lower cost of living country, or they're very new and untested, or it's a scam. * Did you discuss a scope of work for these edits? e.g. wtf is a content edit exactly? Did you agree on what that would entail? Are these terms of reference written down anywhere? * Payment structure varies - could be half now half later, could be all later, could be all now - but what a lot of editors do before taking a project of this size is a sample edit on e.g. the first chapter (could be paid or unpaid). * Timeline expectations is something that you'd typically discuss upfront, again, but generally ghosting for months isn't normal. * In terms of what recourse you have, you can complain to the author who recommended her or post about her on their facebook. You can request a chargeback if you paid through Paypal or a credit card. If y'all are in the same jurisdiction and your jurisdiction allows it, you can also take her to small claims court, but this is going to be more hassle than it's worth. I'd write the $800 off. The content edits IMO are pretty thin even for a free beta reader. But, you know, chalk it up to an expensive lesson. Next time you'll know not to throw your money around. | I can't tell you about freelance editors specifically, but for freelance work in general the nugget of wisdom I usually hear is to pay half now, then the other half when the work is done. according to your agreement. It's the most fair for both parties involved. While yes, there is some onus on you to check and verify their merits, I don't blame you for hiring them since they already have a relationship with a good author like you said. However, it sounds to me like they focus more on their stable income, published and known authors, and put lesser-known or emerging authors on the backburner. Now that's the nice way of looking at it, because it could also be some snobbishness that she thinks you might not be important enough because putting jobs aside that were already paid for in the timeframe you mentioned is highly unprofessional and it's not like she's a novice at it. | 1 | 2,729 | 1.142857 | ||
z83xgm | writing_train | 0.93 | Need advice about an editor I hired Hi all I joined aFacebook writing run by an author of multiple well-received novels. In his group page, that author highly recommended a freelance editor that he claimed he uses. I sent her a couple of thousand words sample of my writing, and we agreed that I pay her upfront 810 USD for two rounds of edits: a content edit and a proofread. I sent her the 50k manuscript on July 26th, and after going cold and a couple of reminders, she sent it back with only the below comments, and they were all made a day before she sent them according to Microsoft Word track changes and review software. I only got the first round on October 13th, and now I sent her the revised manuscript for the second round, and she has gone silent. She won’t confirm receiving it even though I sent it to her on November 19th and then reminded her to verify that she received it on November 23rd and again Nov 28th and until now, I have not heard from her. Is this normal for freelance editors? Should I not have paid her until after she finished? Her tone and response time were utterly different before payment. I’m just frustrated and thought I would ask here if there is anything I could do about it. I should have probably gone for someone highly reviewed on Fivver or Upwork. These are her only “content edits”. I send them because they seem scarce and hasty. The only content edits for a 50k manuscript: • I don't get a sense of the setting, location, time of year, etc. Readers need to know where they are when they begin a story. This part is narrative so it's not all that important but it might be a good idea to mention where they live. In the next scene, we definitely need some description of the setting. We also need some of the five senses. • 'there are' and words like 'about' are weak filter words that make the writing less active. • Again, we need some description of the setting and senses. I won't keep mentioning this, but as you revise, you might want to be aware and work on layering some of that in so readers really feel like the are there. • It's best not to use these types of dialogue tags. They are 'telling.' • As often as you can, rather than using tags like this, it's better to have some action, gestures, emotion, etc. It's not as 'telling' and it helps paint a vivid picture. • We need to stay in third person. • I won't keep correcting these. I'll leave that to you so you get the practice and remember more to avoid tense slips in the future. When I do the next round, I'll watch for any you might have missed. • I'm noticing that there is no emotion of the characters. We are getting the events that unfold but not any reactions or how the characters feel about it. • I would suggest having the dialogue 'shown' instead of just telling readers what a character said. I noticed a lot of that earlier as well. Sometimes in small increments it is okay, but I think for the most part, it's better to actually show the dialogue. • Why did you start using 'Reema' instead of 'me'? • Again, wondering about using her user name instead of 'me'? • This is all very good and makes her very sympathetic. Great job at showing the realism of what she would be thinking and going through. • I have corrected many of these, but a character's action should always be in the same paragraph as their dialogue. • It seems like she'd be anxious to hear what he has to say, so maybe she'll try to press him on the subject? At least a little? • How does this feel to her? Does she like it? Is she repulsed? • Are these lyrics to an actual song? If so, then it's most likely a copyright violation. • I don't understand this part? | iya9s8p | iyajsht | 1,669,760,647 | 1,669,764,898 | 5 | 8 | Sounds like you got exactly what you paid for. | I have a few questions. 1. Was this a developmental edit? 2. What were the person’s qualifications? 3. Did they offer you a sample edit? 4. Did you receive an editorial letter with the returned manuscript? There are several other issues in your post that remind me of my mistake with my first editor. Did you check to see what type of books this person has edited and if yours was a good fit for them? Was there a signed contract? I’m sorry you had this experience and I hope things work out for you in the end. Next time, vet the heck out of your editor, ask for a sample, and only pay half up front to ensure the work is done on time. | 0 | 4,251 | 1.6 | ||
z83xgm | writing_train | 0.93 | Need advice about an editor I hired Hi all I joined aFacebook writing run by an author of multiple well-received novels. In his group page, that author highly recommended a freelance editor that he claimed he uses. I sent her a couple of thousand words sample of my writing, and we agreed that I pay her upfront 810 USD for two rounds of edits: a content edit and a proofread. I sent her the 50k manuscript on July 26th, and after going cold and a couple of reminders, she sent it back with only the below comments, and they were all made a day before she sent them according to Microsoft Word track changes and review software. I only got the first round on October 13th, and now I sent her the revised manuscript for the second round, and she has gone silent. She won’t confirm receiving it even though I sent it to her on November 19th and then reminded her to verify that she received it on November 23rd and again Nov 28th and until now, I have not heard from her. Is this normal for freelance editors? Should I not have paid her until after she finished? Her tone and response time were utterly different before payment. I’m just frustrated and thought I would ask here if there is anything I could do about it. I should have probably gone for someone highly reviewed on Fivver or Upwork. These are her only “content edits”. I send them because they seem scarce and hasty. The only content edits for a 50k manuscript: • I don't get a sense of the setting, location, time of year, etc. Readers need to know where they are when they begin a story. This part is narrative so it's not all that important but it might be a good idea to mention where they live. In the next scene, we definitely need some description of the setting. We also need some of the five senses. • 'there are' and words like 'about' are weak filter words that make the writing less active. • Again, we need some description of the setting and senses. I won't keep mentioning this, but as you revise, you might want to be aware and work on layering some of that in so readers really feel like the are there. • It's best not to use these types of dialogue tags. They are 'telling.' • As often as you can, rather than using tags like this, it's better to have some action, gestures, emotion, etc. It's not as 'telling' and it helps paint a vivid picture. • We need to stay in third person. • I won't keep correcting these. I'll leave that to you so you get the practice and remember more to avoid tense slips in the future. When I do the next round, I'll watch for any you might have missed. • I'm noticing that there is no emotion of the characters. We are getting the events that unfold but not any reactions or how the characters feel about it. • I would suggest having the dialogue 'shown' instead of just telling readers what a character said. I noticed a lot of that earlier as well. Sometimes in small increments it is okay, but I think for the most part, it's better to actually show the dialogue. • Why did you start using 'Reema' instead of 'me'? • Again, wondering about using her user name instead of 'me'? • This is all very good and makes her very sympathetic. Great job at showing the realism of what she would be thinking and going through. • I have corrected many of these, but a character's action should always be in the same paragraph as their dialogue. • It seems like she'd be anxious to hear what he has to say, so maybe she'll try to press him on the subject? At least a little? • How does this feel to her? Does she like it? Is she repulsed? • Are these lyrics to an actual song? If so, then it's most likely a copyright violation. • I don't understand this part? | iya9s8p | iybarsl | 1,669,760,647 | 1,669,777,081 | 5 | 7 | Sounds like you got exactly what you paid for. | Reading the comments the editor left behind, I agree with the other commenter here that said it’s likely the manuscript was very rough. I noticed they made mention of POV switches *and* inconsistent verb tense, which are very easy to fix yourself imo. I personally only had issues with verb tense up to the end of high school with my creative writing, and shortly after was able to nip inconsistencies like that almost immediately. Issues like this are simple to fix in a self-edit and seeing them as editorial notes reminds me of my college peers that have the same issues at 20 years of age while studying English as a major. I would guess that the writing was difficult for the editor to get through and it may have just made everyone’s experience worse. I definitely think more notes should have been left behind but even I have trouble finishing 12 pages of peer-written work when I see typos underlined in red that could have been fixed after a brief once-over by the author. It’s a crappy situation, but I hope that it’s an experience that you learn from nonetheless. Wish you the best. | 0 | 16,434 | 1.4 | ||
z83xgm | writing_train | 0.93 | Need advice about an editor I hired Hi all I joined aFacebook writing run by an author of multiple well-received novels. In his group page, that author highly recommended a freelance editor that he claimed he uses. I sent her a couple of thousand words sample of my writing, and we agreed that I pay her upfront 810 USD for two rounds of edits: a content edit and a proofread. I sent her the 50k manuscript on July 26th, and after going cold and a couple of reminders, she sent it back with only the below comments, and they were all made a day before she sent them according to Microsoft Word track changes and review software. I only got the first round on October 13th, and now I sent her the revised manuscript for the second round, and she has gone silent. She won’t confirm receiving it even though I sent it to her on November 19th and then reminded her to verify that she received it on November 23rd and again Nov 28th and until now, I have not heard from her. Is this normal for freelance editors? Should I not have paid her until after she finished? Her tone and response time were utterly different before payment. I’m just frustrated and thought I would ask here if there is anything I could do about it. I should have probably gone for someone highly reviewed on Fivver or Upwork. These are her only “content edits”. I send them because they seem scarce and hasty. The only content edits for a 50k manuscript: • I don't get a sense of the setting, location, time of year, etc. Readers need to know where they are when they begin a story. This part is narrative so it's not all that important but it might be a good idea to mention where they live. In the next scene, we definitely need some description of the setting. We also need some of the five senses. • 'there are' and words like 'about' are weak filter words that make the writing less active. • Again, we need some description of the setting and senses. I won't keep mentioning this, but as you revise, you might want to be aware and work on layering some of that in so readers really feel like the are there. • It's best not to use these types of dialogue tags. They are 'telling.' • As often as you can, rather than using tags like this, it's better to have some action, gestures, emotion, etc. It's not as 'telling' and it helps paint a vivid picture. • We need to stay in third person. • I won't keep correcting these. I'll leave that to you so you get the practice and remember more to avoid tense slips in the future. When I do the next round, I'll watch for any you might have missed. • I'm noticing that there is no emotion of the characters. We are getting the events that unfold but not any reactions or how the characters feel about it. • I would suggest having the dialogue 'shown' instead of just telling readers what a character said. I noticed a lot of that earlier as well. Sometimes in small increments it is okay, but I think for the most part, it's better to actually show the dialogue. • Why did you start using 'Reema' instead of 'me'? • Again, wondering about using her user name instead of 'me'? • This is all very good and makes her very sympathetic. Great job at showing the realism of what she would be thinking and going through. • I have corrected many of these, but a character's action should always be in the same paragraph as their dialogue. • It seems like she'd be anxious to hear what he has to say, so maybe she'll try to press him on the subject? At least a little? • How does this feel to her? Does she like it? Is she repulsed? • Are these lyrics to an actual song? If so, then it's most likely a copyright violation. • I don't understand this part? | iyawelh | iybarsl | 1,669,770,483 | 1,669,777,081 | 4 | 7 | I had an editor like this years ago. Some freelance editors are like solicitors. Take on too much work at one time, and then quality control gets severely hit. When dealing with clients over email, its easy to bury their head in the sand. She's got to get back to you at some point. So try to keep your cool. Sounds like your book is one she may have regretted taking onboard, but she still should have completed the job, or just told you she couldn't continue and terminated the contract. | Reading the comments the editor left behind, I agree with the other commenter here that said it’s likely the manuscript was very rough. I noticed they made mention of POV switches *and* inconsistent verb tense, which are very easy to fix yourself imo. I personally only had issues with verb tense up to the end of high school with my creative writing, and shortly after was able to nip inconsistencies like that almost immediately. Issues like this are simple to fix in a self-edit and seeing them as editorial notes reminds me of my college peers that have the same issues at 20 years of age while studying English as a major. I would guess that the writing was difficult for the editor to get through and it may have just made everyone’s experience worse. I definitely think more notes should have been left behind but even I have trouble finishing 12 pages of peer-written work when I see typos underlined in red that could have been fixed after a brief once-over by the author. It’s a crappy situation, but I hope that it’s an experience that you learn from nonetheless. Wish you the best. | 0 | 6,598 | 1.75 | ||
z83xgm | writing_train | 0.93 | Need advice about an editor I hired Hi all I joined aFacebook writing run by an author of multiple well-received novels. In his group page, that author highly recommended a freelance editor that he claimed he uses. I sent her a couple of thousand words sample of my writing, and we agreed that I pay her upfront 810 USD for two rounds of edits: a content edit and a proofread. I sent her the 50k manuscript on July 26th, and after going cold and a couple of reminders, she sent it back with only the below comments, and they were all made a day before she sent them according to Microsoft Word track changes and review software. I only got the first round on October 13th, and now I sent her the revised manuscript for the second round, and she has gone silent. She won’t confirm receiving it even though I sent it to her on November 19th and then reminded her to verify that she received it on November 23rd and again Nov 28th and until now, I have not heard from her. Is this normal for freelance editors? Should I not have paid her until after she finished? Her tone and response time were utterly different before payment. I’m just frustrated and thought I would ask here if there is anything I could do about it. I should have probably gone for someone highly reviewed on Fivver or Upwork. These are her only “content edits”. I send them because they seem scarce and hasty. The only content edits for a 50k manuscript: • I don't get a sense of the setting, location, time of year, etc. Readers need to know where they are when they begin a story. This part is narrative so it's not all that important but it might be a good idea to mention where they live. In the next scene, we definitely need some description of the setting. We also need some of the five senses. • 'there are' and words like 'about' are weak filter words that make the writing less active. • Again, we need some description of the setting and senses. I won't keep mentioning this, but as you revise, you might want to be aware and work on layering some of that in so readers really feel like the are there. • It's best not to use these types of dialogue tags. They are 'telling.' • As often as you can, rather than using tags like this, it's better to have some action, gestures, emotion, etc. It's not as 'telling' and it helps paint a vivid picture. • We need to stay in third person. • I won't keep correcting these. I'll leave that to you so you get the practice and remember more to avoid tense slips in the future. When I do the next round, I'll watch for any you might have missed. • I'm noticing that there is no emotion of the characters. We are getting the events that unfold but not any reactions or how the characters feel about it. • I would suggest having the dialogue 'shown' instead of just telling readers what a character said. I noticed a lot of that earlier as well. Sometimes in small increments it is okay, but I think for the most part, it's better to actually show the dialogue. • Why did you start using 'Reema' instead of 'me'? • Again, wondering about using her user name instead of 'me'? • This is all very good and makes her very sympathetic. Great job at showing the realism of what she would be thinking and going through. • I have corrected many of these, but a character's action should always be in the same paragraph as their dialogue. • It seems like she'd be anxious to hear what he has to say, so maybe she'll try to press him on the subject? At least a little? • How does this feel to her? Does she like it? Is she repulsed? • Are these lyrics to an actual song? If so, then it's most likely a copyright violation. • I don't understand this part? | iybarsl | iyb9pv1 | 1,669,777,081 | 1,669,776,589 | 7 | 3 | Reading the comments the editor left behind, I agree with the other commenter here that said it’s likely the manuscript was very rough. I noticed they made mention of POV switches *and* inconsistent verb tense, which are very easy to fix yourself imo. I personally only had issues with verb tense up to the end of high school with my creative writing, and shortly after was able to nip inconsistencies like that almost immediately. Issues like this are simple to fix in a self-edit and seeing them as editorial notes reminds me of my college peers that have the same issues at 20 years of age while studying English as a major. I would guess that the writing was difficult for the editor to get through and it may have just made everyone’s experience worse. I definitely think more notes should have been left behind but even I have trouble finishing 12 pages of peer-written work when I see typos underlined in red that could have been fixed after a brief once-over by the author. It’s a crappy situation, but I hope that it’s an experience that you learn from nonetheless. Wish you the best. | I’m gonna be honest, I’ve never heard of a ‘content editor’ for novels before. Content editors are more for digital services for companies to create targeted messages for customers. Did you mean copy editor? Cause the comments she made are what I would expect to see from a copy editor. Out of copy, line, and developmental editors, copy editing is cheaper than the other 2, BUT $800 for 2 rounds of editing for a 60k novel is quite cheap. Did you actually vet this editor and see how legit her work is? Did you take her on because of just one recommendation from a facebook page? You said the author used her before? On their published works? Or is this just a friend of this author? Good editors are not cheap - that’s why you have to do due diligence before hiring one. Please tell me you at least went through a bunch of beta readers who were able to tell you everything wrong with your story before looking for an editor. | 1 | 492 | 2.333333 | ||
z83xgm | writing_train | 0.93 | Need advice about an editor I hired Hi all I joined aFacebook writing run by an author of multiple well-received novels. In his group page, that author highly recommended a freelance editor that he claimed he uses. I sent her a couple of thousand words sample of my writing, and we agreed that I pay her upfront 810 USD for two rounds of edits: a content edit and a proofread. I sent her the 50k manuscript on July 26th, and after going cold and a couple of reminders, she sent it back with only the below comments, and they were all made a day before she sent them according to Microsoft Word track changes and review software. I only got the first round on October 13th, and now I sent her the revised manuscript for the second round, and she has gone silent. She won’t confirm receiving it even though I sent it to her on November 19th and then reminded her to verify that she received it on November 23rd and again Nov 28th and until now, I have not heard from her. Is this normal for freelance editors? Should I not have paid her until after she finished? Her tone and response time were utterly different before payment. I’m just frustrated and thought I would ask here if there is anything I could do about it. I should have probably gone for someone highly reviewed on Fivver or Upwork. These are her only “content edits”. I send them because they seem scarce and hasty. The only content edits for a 50k manuscript: • I don't get a sense of the setting, location, time of year, etc. Readers need to know where they are when they begin a story. This part is narrative so it's not all that important but it might be a good idea to mention where they live. In the next scene, we definitely need some description of the setting. We also need some of the five senses. • 'there are' and words like 'about' are weak filter words that make the writing less active. • Again, we need some description of the setting and senses. I won't keep mentioning this, but as you revise, you might want to be aware and work on layering some of that in so readers really feel like the are there. • It's best not to use these types of dialogue tags. They are 'telling.' • As often as you can, rather than using tags like this, it's better to have some action, gestures, emotion, etc. It's not as 'telling' and it helps paint a vivid picture. • We need to stay in third person. • I won't keep correcting these. I'll leave that to you so you get the practice and remember more to avoid tense slips in the future. When I do the next round, I'll watch for any you might have missed. • I'm noticing that there is no emotion of the characters. We are getting the events that unfold but not any reactions or how the characters feel about it. • I would suggest having the dialogue 'shown' instead of just telling readers what a character said. I noticed a lot of that earlier as well. Sometimes in small increments it is okay, but I think for the most part, it's better to actually show the dialogue. • Why did you start using 'Reema' instead of 'me'? • Again, wondering about using her user name instead of 'me'? • This is all very good and makes her very sympathetic. Great job at showing the realism of what she would be thinking and going through. • I have corrected many of these, but a character's action should always be in the same paragraph as their dialogue. • It seems like she'd be anxious to hear what he has to say, so maybe she'll try to press him on the subject? At least a little? • How does this feel to her? Does she like it? Is she repulsed? • Are these lyrics to an actual song? If so, then it's most likely a copyright violation. • I don't understand this part? | iyd14wa | iybsf9d | 1,669,818,401 | 1,669,786,470 | 3 | 2 | Why am I using her name instead of me? I thought we were staying in 3rd. 1. Don't hire people off of Facebook that's like grabbing some mook in the street 2. Ask for your money back and when they refuse, get a lawyer and take it back. | Never pay more then a small percentage upfront for pretty much any personal service, it’s ok at McDonald’s lol | 1 | 31,931 | 1.5 | ||
z83xgm | writing_train | 0.93 | Need advice about an editor I hired Hi all I joined aFacebook writing run by an author of multiple well-received novels. In his group page, that author highly recommended a freelance editor that he claimed he uses. I sent her a couple of thousand words sample of my writing, and we agreed that I pay her upfront 810 USD for two rounds of edits: a content edit and a proofread. I sent her the 50k manuscript on July 26th, and after going cold and a couple of reminders, she sent it back with only the below comments, and they were all made a day before she sent them according to Microsoft Word track changes and review software. I only got the first round on October 13th, and now I sent her the revised manuscript for the second round, and she has gone silent. She won’t confirm receiving it even though I sent it to her on November 19th and then reminded her to verify that she received it on November 23rd and again Nov 28th and until now, I have not heard from her. Is this normal for freelance editors? Should I not have paid her until after she finished? Her tone and response time were utterly different before payment. I’m just frustrated and thought I would ask here if there is anything I could do about it. I should have probably gone for someone highly reviewed on Fivver or Upwork. These are her only “content edits”. I send them because they seem scarce and hasty. The only content edits for a 50k manuscript: • I don't get a sense of the setting, location, time of year, etc. Readers need to know where they are when they begin a story. This part is narrative so it's not all that important but it might be a good idea to mention where they live. In the next scene, we definitely need some description of the setting. We also need some of the five senses. • 'there are' and words like 'about' are weak filter words that make the writing less active. • Again, we need some description of the setting and senses. I won't keep mentioning this, but as you revise, you might want to be aware and work on layering some of that in so readers really feel like the are there. • It's best not to use these types of dialogue tags. They are 'telling.' • As often as you can, rather than using tags like this, it's better to have some action, gestures, emotion, etc. It's not as 'telling' and it helps paint a vivid picture. • We need to stay in third person. • I won't keep correcting these. I'll leave that to you so you get the practice and remember more to avoid tense slips in the future. When I do the next round, I'll watch for any you might have missed. • I'm noticing that there is no emotion of the characters. We are getting the events that unfold but not any reactions or how the characters feel about it. • I would suggest having the dialogue 'shown' instead of just telling readers what a character said. I noticed a lot of that earlier as well. Sometimes in small increments it is okay, but I think for the most part, it's better to actually show the dialogue. • Why did you start using 'Reema' instead of 'me'? • Again, wondering about using her user name instead of 'me'? • This is all very good and makes her very sympathetic. Great job at showing the realism of what she would be thinking and going through. • I have corrected many of these, but a character's action should always be in the same paragraph as their dialogue. • It seems like she'd be anxious to hear what he has to say, so maybe she'll try to press him on the subject? At least a little? • How does this feel to her? Does she like it? Is she repulsed? • Are these lyrics to an actual song? If so, then it's most likely a copyright violation. • I don't understand this part? | iyd14wa | iycrfso | 1,669,818,401 | 1,669,813,402 | 3 | 1 | Why am I using her name instead of me? I thought we were staying in 3rd. 1. Don't hire people off of Facebook that's like grabbing some mook in the street 2. Ask for your money back and when they refuse, get a lawyer and take it back. | I don’t notice anywhere that you mention a contract for services outlining what exactly would be done under the term “content editing” or “proofreading”, what constitutes a “round”. All of these are terms that should be legally defined in a contract for services. I don’t know that you have any recourse other than to move on without a contract to establish grievance in any request for refund, response, or rework | 1 | 4,999 | 3 | ||
vczb91 | writing_train | 0.78 | When I'm writing, I feel like I'm using the names of my characters/their pronouns WAY too often I continually find while writing my story that I refer to my characters by their names and pronouns a LOT. At worst, it happens almost every other sentence, and though it dies down in some paragraphs it can quickly ramp up again Is this a bad thing? Is there anything I can do in my writing to avoid this? | ich69uw | ich78xy | 1,655,312,917 | 1,655,313,321 | -2 | 13 | Yes it’s bad. You can avoid it by wording your sentences differently. | If you are in your first draft, for a moment don't worry just get it on the page. When you read your draft with fresh eyes for editing then it is a lot easier to edit around that. | 0 | 404 | -6.5 | ||
vczb91 | writing_train | 0.78 | When I'm writing, I feel like I'm using the names of my characters/their pronouns WAY too often I continually find while writing my story that I refer to my characters by their names and pronouns a LOT. At worst, it happens almost every other sentence, and though it dies down in some paragraphs it can quickly ramp up again Is this a bad thing? Is there anything I can do in my writing to avoid this? | ich78nq | ich69uw | 1,655,313,318 | 1,655,312,917 | 14 | -2 | Names and pronouns are a grammatical necessity, so they can be used fairly often without coming off as repetitive. Pronouns in particular are something that you just sort of have to use often to make useful sentences because, unsurprisingly, the actions of people tend to be fairly important, and you need to refer to the people involved somehow. That said, you can overuse them, as with anything. Defaulting to using them as sentence starters is particularly dangerous because that leads to uniform sentence structures. If you feel like you're using them too much, you just have to vary the structure of your text to break the monotony, such as just by adding in description to put some distance between the uses. You might be tempted to bludgeon synonyms in there instead to dodge the issue (using epithets like "the taller man" or "the heiress" or whathaveyou) but those do nothing about the sentence structures, and they add a whole level of alienation to the text because humans just don't view people they know based on superficial qualities like that. | Yes it’s bad. You can avoid it by wording your sentences differently. | 1 | 401 | -7 | ||
vczb91 | writing_train | 0.78 | When I'm writing, I feel like I'm using the names of my characters/their pronouns WAY too often I continually find while writing my story that I refer to my characters by their names and pronouns a LOT. At worst, it happens almost every other sentence, and though it dies down in some paragraphs it can quickly ramp up again Is this a bad thing? Is there anything I can do in my writing to avoid this? | ich8j0k | ichoe1v | 1,655,313,841 | 1,655,320,298 | 4 | 6 | Practice writing without using pronouns and character names, which as you get better can be literally applied to any story Start with constructing a narrative paragraph, one whole paragraph or several depending on whether you use dialogue, without using your no-no words Technique takes time | You can ... just stop. Seriously, though - what this says to me (without reading a word of your writing, so here's your pinch of salt) is that you're focused on the characters to the exclusion of everything around them - from environment to occurrences to narrative to thought. Look at the balance that authors you admire use. How often are they talking about the character, and how often about the space or the situation that the character is in, or the thoughts in their head, or...basically, everything except the character? I'm currently reading Karin Slaughter's *The Good Daughter.* Let's see how my thinking holds up. Page 292, hardcover. Sam is our POV character. > **Lenore** pursed **her** lips. "That wasn't the question I thought you would ask." > That wasn't a question that **Sam** thought **she** would ask, either, but it made a horrible kind of sense. The distance between Charlie and Ben. The way Charlie had teared up when she talked about Mason Huckabee. > **Lenore** asked, "You told Charlie who he is?" > **Sam** nodded. > "That oughtta make her feel like shit," **Lenore** added. "Even more than she already does." > "Not for want of defenders." > "You know a lot for somebody who's only been here five minutes." So we're in dialog, which necessarily requires identifying speakers. in our one prose paragraph, we orient in Sam's POV, but then we go into her thoughts and they're focused outward. .... We'll skip forward a few lines and the scene continues: > "Understood." **Sam** unfolded **her** cane. **She** felt sturdier on **her** feet as **she** got out of the car. Adrenaline had always been **her** ally. Anger ran a close second as **she** marched up a ramp intended for bulk toilet paper deliveries and trash bins. The smell of rotting food from the dumpsters was noxious. > Inside, the courthouse was like every other courthouse **Sam** had entered, except there was an oversampling of good-looking men and women in camera-ready suits. **Sam's** cane got **her** to the front of the line. Two sheriff's deputies were stationed by the metal detector. **Sam** had to show **her** ID, sign in, show **her** legal credentials so that **she** could keep **her** phone, then wait for a female deputy to pat **her** down because the plate in **her** head set off the alarm when **she** walked through the metal detector. > The elevator was on the right. There were two sub-basement floors, but Lenore had told **her** to go down one floor so **Sam** pressed the appropriate button and waited. The car was full of men in suits. **She** stood at the back. **She** leaned against the wall to take weight off **her** leg. When the doors open, all of the men stepped aside so that **she** could leave the elevator first. > There were some things **Sam** missed about the South. This is a series of transitions, so we have to orient both Sam and the reader in each new place if we're going to have them. Slaughter probably wants to draw the scene out to get the "descent into the belly of the beast" feel. She's going into the jail beneath the courthouse to visit her client, and this is the first time we've been with the character in context of this case, so Slaughter probably felt it necessary to take it step by step rather than just move her from the car to the jail. So she uses each transition to give us information about the POV character - how her disability affects her, how she sees the scene, etc. So, by paragraph: 1. Start from the character's POV to establish her in the changing scene, then focus outward to give us a picture. As we move through the paragraph, the focus changes -- *Sam* and *her* early in the first two sentences, and then in the middle of the next two, and then nonexistent in the last two The smell of rot is a great cue to what we're going to find in the character's case, so we leave the description of Sam's actions to focus on it. 2. We transition again, so we have to ground the reader again. We focus the scene on Sam's POV in the first sentence (but not up front, to ease us back into where we're going to get *Sam* this, *her* that in the end of the paragraph, but most of the actual focus is on the external in the first sentence. In the latter sentences, Slaughter probably wanted to emphasize how the character's disability affects her experiences, so we have a lot of name-and-pronouns anchoring us to Sam specifically. 3. Another transition. We don't get a *Sam* or *her* until the second half of the second sentence, She focuses on others - the men in suits - and then how she interacts with them and, again, Slaughter grounds us in Sam's disability--it always affects her, but we're seeing how she incorporates it into her life. 4. And just a bit of humor tied into Sam's character (who has heretofore resented returning home) So... what I'm seeing from Slaughter is: * Variety in structure and usage, and each choice seems to be for a specific purpose. * Variety not only between paragraphs but within them. * Move in and out, changing focus from Sam to the world around her. When we're focused on her, we use her name and pronoun; when we're focused outward, we don't. * Anchor us in Sam's body and disability, which may necessarily require us to use more nouns and pronouns (or which Slaughter definitely chose on purpose to make us feel in touch with Sam) I don't find Slaughter to be a compelling stylist, but she's a very capable writer who tells a story extremely well. This is a decent representation of her style. So... grab a page out of a professionally-edited book you're reading, and analyze it here. What does the author do? What purpose do those choices serve? | 0 | 6,457 | 1.5 | ||
vczb91 | writing_train | 0.78 | When I'm writing, I feel like I'm using the names of my characters/their pronouns WAY too often I continually find while writing my story that I refer to my characters by their names and pronouns a LOT. At worst, it happens almost every other sentence, and though it dies down in some paragraphs it can quickly ramp up again Is this a bad thing? Is there anything I can do in my writing to avoid this? | ich69uw | ichoe1v | 1,655,312,917 | 1,655,320,298 | -2 | 6 | Yes it’s bad. You can avoid it by wording your sentences differently. | You can ... just stop. Seriously, though - what this says to me (without reading a word of your writing, so here's your pinch of salt) is that you're focused on the characters to the exclusion of everything around them - from environment to occurrences to narrative to thought. Look at the balance that authors you admire use. How often are they talking about the character, and how often about the space or the situation that the character is in, or the thoughts in their head, or...basically, everything except the character? I'm currently reading Karin Slaughter's *The Good Daughter.* Let's see how my thinking holds up. Page 292, hardcover. Sam is our POV character. > **Lenore** pursed **her** lips. "That wasn't the question I thought you would ask." > That wasn't a question that **Sam** thought **she** would ask, either, but it made a horrible kind of sense. The distance between Charlie and Ben. The way Charlie had teared up when she talked about Mason Huckabee. > **Lenore** asked, "You told Charlie who he is?" > **Sam** nodded. > "That oughtta make her feel like shit," **Lenore** added. "Even more than she already does." > "Not for want of defenders." > "You know a lot for somebody who's only been here five minutes." So we're in dialog, which necessarily requires identifying speakers. in our one prose paragraph, we orient in Sam's POV, but then we go into her thoughts and they're focused outward. .... We'll skip forward a few lines and the scene continues: > "Understood." **Sam** unfolded **her** cane. **She** felt sturdier on **her** feet as **she** got out of the car. Adrenaline had always been **her** ally. Anger ran a close second as **she** marched up a ramp intended for bulk toilet paper deliveries and trash bins. The smell of rotting food from the dumpsters was noxious. > Inside, the courthouse was like every other courthouse **Sam** had entered, except there was an oversampling of good-looking men and women in camera-ready suits. **Sam's** cane got **her** to the front of the line. Two sheriff's deputies were stationed by the metal detector. **Sam** had to show **her** ID, sign in, show **her** legal credentials so that **she** could keep **her** phone, then wait for a female deputy to pat **her** down because the plate in **her** head set off the alarm when **she** walked through the metal detector. > The elevator was on the right. There were two sub-basement floors, but Lenore had told **her** to go down one floor so **Sam** pressed the appropriate button and waited. The car was full of men in suits. **She** stood at the back. **She** leaned against the wall to take weight off **her** leg. When the doors open, all of the men stepped aside so that **she** could leave the elevator first. > There were some things **Sam** missed about the South. This is a series of transitions, so we have to orient both Sam and the reader in each new place if we're going to have them. Slaughter probably wants to draw the scene out to get the "descent into the belly of the beast" feel. She's going into the jail beneath the courthouse to visit her client, and this is the first time we've been with the character in context of this case, so Slaughter probably felt it necessary to take it step by step rather than just move her from the car to the jail. So she uses each transition to give us information about the POV character - how her disability affects her, how she sees the scene, etc. So, by paragraph: 1. Start from the character's POV to establish her in the changing scene, then focus outward to give us a picture. As we move through the paragraph, the focus changes -- *Sam* and *her* early in the first two sentences, and then in the middle of the next two, and then nonexistent in the last two The smell of rot is a great cue to what we're going to find in the character's case, so we leave the description of Sam's actions to focus on it. 2. We transition again, so we have to ground the reader again. We focus the scene on Sam's POV in the first sentence (but not up front, to ease us back into where we're going to get *Sam* this, *her* that in the end of the paragraph, but most of the actual focus is on the external in the first sentence. In the latter sentences, Slaughter probably wanted to emphasize how the character's disability affects her experiences, so we have a lot of name-and-pronouns anchoring us to Sam specifically. 3. Another transition. We don't get a *Sam* or *her* until the second half of the second sentence, She focuses on others - the men in suits - and then how she interacts with them and, again, Slaughter grounds us in Sam's disability--it always affects her, but we're seeing how she incorporates it into her life. 4. And just a bit of humor tied into Sam's character (who has heretofore resented returning home) So... what I'm seeing from Slaughter is: * Variety in structure and usage, and each choice seems to be for a specific purpose. * Variety not only between paragraphs but within them. * Move in and out, changing focus from Sam to the world around her. When we're focused on her, we use her name and pronoun; when we're focused outward, we don't. * Anchor us in Sam's body and disability, which may necessarily require us to use more nouns and pronouns (or which Slaughter definitely chose on purpose to make us feel in touch with Sam) I don't find Slaughter to be a compelling stylist, but she's a very capable writer who tells a story extremely well. This is a decent representation of her style. So... grab a page out of a professionally-edited book you're reading, and analyze it here. What does the author do? What purpose do those choices serve? | 0 | 7,381 | -3 | ||
vczb91 | writing_train | 0.78 | When I'm writing, I feel like I'm using the names of my characters/their pronouns WAY too often I continually find while writing my story that I refer to my characters by their names and pronouns a LOT. At worst, it happens almost every other sentence, and though it dies down in some paragraphs it can quickly ramp up again Is this a bad thing? Is there anything I can do in my writing to avoid this? | ich69uw | ich8j0k | 1,655,312,917 | 1,655,313,841 | -2 | 4 | Yes it’s bad. You can avoid it by wording your sentences differently. | Practice writing without using pronouns and character names, which as you get better can be literally applied to any story Start with constructing a narrative paragraph, one whole paragraph or several depending on whether you use dialogue, without using your no-no words Technique takes time | 0 | 924 | -2 | ||
vczb91 | writing_train | 0.78 | When I'm writing, I feel like I'm using the names of my characters/their pronouns WAY too often I continually find while writing my story that I refer to my characters by their names and pronouns a LOT. At worst, it happens almost every other sentence, and though it dies down in some paragraphs it can quickly ramp up again Is this a bad thing? Is there anything I can do in my writing to avoid this? | ichws3z | ich69uw | 1,655,323,899 | 1,655,312,917 | 2 | -2 | Usually this is a symptom of a different problem, but it's best to deal with it in editing until you get the practice to do it on your first draft. It is not worth slowing down the first draft to fix because it is so readily handled after. In general, you don't have to orient every sentence. Readers will carry forward a perspective at least few sentences for free. You don't need she and he every other sentence. Determine after you've gotten a section down whether it reads well or whether it needs work. Take the example from another user's comment: >Two sheriff's deputies were stationed by the metal detector. **Sam** had to show *her* ID, sign in, show *her* legal credentials so that *she* could keep *her* phone, then wait for a female deputy to pat *her* down because the plate in *her* head set off the alarm when *sh*e walked through the metal detector. That's the character's name and 7 uses of she or her in two sentences. Put in my hands, I would cut a few just to buy me room to have a few more in the sentences surrounding this paragraph: >Two sheriff's deputies were stationed by the metal detector. Sam had to show ID, sign in, show legal credentials to keep them from confiscating her phone, then wait for a female deputy to perform a pat-down because the plate in her head caused the metal detector to shriek throughout the hall. Now there are only three total references so it doesn't feel like a pronoun is every other word should it be more necessary to use them in surrounding sentences. We can only really determine this from the full context, which is why we handle these in editing. Once we established this paragraph is about Sam (from the moment she showed ID), we didn't have to say that it was her ID, that's implied. And from there, she would not sign anyone else in, again, by implication. We would imagine that the metal detector would go off when in contact with her and not anyone else by knowledge of how metal detectors in courthouses work. Depending on how you feel about each edit, you can reinstate one or two for clarity, readability, rhythm, or taste. | Yes it’s bad. You can avoid it by wording your sentences differently. | 1 | 10,982 | -1 | ||
vczb91 | writing_train | 0.78 | When I'm writing, I feel like I'm using the names of my characters/their pronouns WAY too often I continually find while writing my story that I refer to my characters by their names and pronouns a LOT. At worst, it happens almost every other sentence, and though it dies down in some paragraphs it can quickly ramp up again Is this a bad thing? Is there anything I can do in my writing to avoid this? | ici1zlr | ich69uw | 1,655,326,085 | 1,655,312,917 | 2 | -2 | Just please don't use epithets. There are some past posts on here where people have done a great job explaining exactly why, but using names and pronouns frequently is MUCH better than using weird epithets. (I literally can't stomach a fic I want to read because it keeps calling the MC "the ravenette.") Names and pronouns will probably just be breezed over in the reader's mind and likely isn't as big an issue as you think. However, it could simply be that you need to work on varying your sentence structure and adding some longer sentences, in which case focus on *that*, and not on the names/pronouns issue, which will naturally be resolved if your writing itself improves as a whole. | Yes it’s bad. You can avoid it by wording your sentences differently. | 1 | 13,168 | -1 | ||
vczb91 | writing_train | 0.78 | When I'm writing, I feel like I'm using the names of my characters/their pronouns WAY too often I continually find while writing my story that I refer to my characters by their names and pronouns a LOT. At worst, it happens almost every other sentence, and though it dies down in some paragraphs it can quickly ramp up again Is this a bad thing? Is there anything I can do in my writing to avoid this? | ich69uw | icim82t | 1,655,312,917 | 1,655,335,037 | -2 | 1 | Yes it’s bad. You can avoid it by wording your sentences differently. | During a rewrite work on sentence variety maybe. | 0 | 22,120 | -0.5 | ||
vczb91 | writing_train | 0.78 | When I'm writing, I feel like I'm using the names of my characters/their pronouns WAY too often I continually find while writing my story that I refer to my characters by their names and pronouns a LOT. At worst, it happens almost every other sentence, and though it dies down in some paragraphs it can quickly ramp up again Is this a bad thing? Is there anything I can do in my writing to avoid this? | icm1qo3 | ich69uw | 1,655,404,007 | 1,655,312,917 | 1 | -2 | I did it on purpose to reflect their original language, in which they refer a lot to people’s name and title or other hierarchical tag (not saying ‘you’ often) It didn’t render well… A betareader was hysterical about it. Now I’m cleaning those, but for MC I leave quite some for her voice when it a name-title. | Yes it’s bad. You can avoid it by wording your sentences differently. | 1 | 91,090 | -0.5 | ||
vahh33 | writing_train | 1 | How to write a follower character that seems as interesting and unique as the character they are following if not more ? This felt like a really interesting character design challenge for me. I am trying to write a character that is supposed to be a follower of another main character. But I seem to have trouble in creating them unique enough that they feel as a main character themselves and not just like a henchman that someone has to go through to reach the final boss.I want the character to truly believe in their leader and their ideals but also not come off as just a side-character that doesn't matter. They should have their own passion , drive and personality while still holding on to that belief. Is it possible to have something like that ? | ic2j5dz | ic2fwq0 | 1,655,025,518 | 1,655,022,513 | 4 | 2 | Yes, it's possible. I got death threats when I killed off my MC's husband, because people loved him so much. Don't make them a follower, make them a partner. They need as much agenda, history, background, personality and reasons to do what they do as the MC. Give them conflict that enhances both their perspectives. Let them be active, let them make decisions. Let their relationship grow and change over time. | I’m not a writer but I have read a book that has a character exactly as you describe. Check out how Aurora is portrayed in The Exiled Rogue Series. Hopefully that might provide some insight and an inspiration. Good luck! | 1 | 3,005 | 2 | ||
vahh33 | writing_train | 1 | How to write a follower character that seems as interesting and unique as the character they are following if not more ? This felt like a really interesting character design challenge for me. I am trying to write a character that is supposed to be a follower of another main character. But I seem to have trouble in creating them unique enough that they feel as a main character themselves and not just like a henchman that someone has to go through to reach the final boss.I want the character to truly believe in their leader and their ideals but also not come off as just a side-character that doesn't matter. They should have their own passion , drive and personality while still holding on to that belief. Is it possible to have something like that ? | ic4ner6 | ic2fwq0 | 1,655,067,172 | 1,655,022,513 | 3 | 2 | One of my favorite characters in Arcane (gorgeous show; def recommend watching it) is a henchwoman. The things that make her work, imo (SPOILERS): 1\. **She has her own ideals/motives/ambitions** that are made clear when she's introduced (she's not just copying someone else's) 2\. She 'betrays' someone very early on for not aligning with those ideals. This establishes her as someone who's **capable of leaving when she wants** 3\. **It's not immediately clear to the audience why she committed to that betrayal**; it could've been for personal gain for all the audience knows 4\. She eventually **aligns with a group/leader that's wholly committed to the same ideals as her** 5\. The writers leverage the historic ambiguity in her loyalty by giving her **multiple opportunities to betray her new group for personal gain, only for her to stay loyal anyways** This is, imo, the perfect way to frame a henchperson in a way that lends them their own sense of agency and mystique. She's a capable fighter, a capable planner, and *could* replace the leader if she wanted to, but doesn't, because she sees any ally to her cause as an ally to her. She's fine playing second fiddle to a competent first. | I’m not a writer but I have read a book that has a character exactly as you describe. Check out how Aurora is portrayed in The Exiled Rogue Series. Hopefully that might provide some insight and an inspiration. Good luck! | 1 | 44,659 | 1.5 | ||
vahh33 | writing_train | 1 | How to write a follower character that seems as interesting and unique as the character they are following if not more ? This felt like a really interesting character design challenge for me. I am trying to write a character that is supposed to be a follower of another main character. But I seem to have trouble in creating them unique enough that they feel as a main character themselves and not just like a henchman that someone has to go through to reach the final boss.I want the character to truly believe in their leader and their ideals but also not come off as just a side-character that doesn't matter. They should have their own passion , drive and personality while still holding on to that belief. Is it possible to have something like that ? | ic4ner6 | ic2tu2k | 1,655,067,172 | 1,655,034,588 | 3 | 2 | One of my favorite characters in Arcane (gorgeous show; def recommend watching it) is a henchwoman. The things that make her work, imo (SPOILERS): 1\. **She has her own ideals/motives/ambitions** that are made clear when she's introduced (she's not just copying someone else's) 2\. She 'betrays' someone very early on for not aligning with those ideals. This establishes her as someone who's **capable of leaving when she wants** 3\. **It's not immediately clear to the audience why she committed to that betrayal**; it could've been for personal gain for all the audience knows 4\. She eventually **aligns with a group/leader that's wholly committed to the same ideals as her** 5\. The writers leverage the historic ambiguity in her loyalty by giving her **multiple opportunities to betray her new group for personal gain, only for her to stay loyal anyways** This is, imo, the perfect way to frame a henchperson in a way that lends them their own sense of agency and mystique. She's a capable fighter, a capable planner, and *could* replace the leader if she wanted to, but doesn't, because she sees any ally to her cause as an ally to her. She's fine playing second fiddle to a competent first. | know the baskstory for that character and how and why they got to be the sort of person for whom these ideals matter | 1 | 32,584 | 1.5 | ||
vahh33 | writing_train | 1 | How to write a follower character that seems as interesting and unique as the character they are following if not more ? This felt like a really interesting character design challenge for me. I am trying to write a character that is supposed to be a follower of another main character. But I seem to have trouble in creating them unique enough that they feel as a main character themselves and not just like a henchman that someone has to go through to reach the final boss.I want the character to truly believe in their leader and their ideals but also not come off as just a side-character that doesn't matter. They should have their own passion , drive and personality while still holding on to that belief. Is it possible to have something like that ? | ic30brc | ic4ner6 | 1,655,038,778 | 1,655,067,172 | 2 | 3 | Do you know Siddhartha by Herman Hesse? The protagonist sees the Buddha (which is the main character of a whole religion of course) and praises him as much as everyone else, but recognizes that his path towards greatness is not the same as the Buddha's. So everyone blindly follows the Buddha and imitates him, whereas Siddhartha goes his own way, trying to be enlightened just like him, but consciously, on his own terms, creating his own path towards the common goal. So maybe make your ,follower' just as strong and give him his own personality that is just as great as the leader's without letting the both of them tread the same path. | One of my favorite characters in Arcane (gorgeous show; def recommend watching it) is a henchwoman. The things that make her work, imo (SPOILERS): 1\. **She has her own ideals/motives/ambitions** that are made clear when she's introduced (she's not just copying someone else's) 2\. She 'betrays' someone very early on for not aligning with those ideals. This establishes her as someone who's **capable of leaving when she wants** 3\. **It's not immediately clear to the audience why she committed to that betrayal**; it could've been for personal gain for all the audience knows 4\. She eventually **aligns with a group/leader that's wholly committed to the same ideals as her** 5\. The writers leverage the historic ambiguity in her loyalty by giving her **multiple opportunities to betray her new group for personal gain, only for her to stay loyal anyways** This is, imo, the perfect way to frame a henchperson in a way that lends them their own sense of agency and mystique. She's a capable fighter, a capable planner, and *could* replace the leader if she wanted to, but doesn't, because she sees any ally to her cause as an ally to her. She's fine playing second fiddle to a competent first. | 0 | 28,394 | 1.5 | ||
vahh33 | writing_train | 1 | How to write a follower character that seems as interesting and unique as the character they are following if not more ? This felt like a really interesting character design challenge for me. I am trying to write a character that is supposed to be a follower of another main character. But I seem to have trouble in creating them unique enough that they feel as a main character themselves and not just like a henchman that someone has to go through to reach the final boss.I want the character to truly believe in their leader and their ideals but also not come off as just a side-character that doesn't matter. They should have their own passion , drive and personality while still holding on to that belief. Is it possible to have something like that ? | ic4ner6 | ic2z8qi | 1,655,067,172 | 1,655,038,129 | 3 | 1 | One of my favorite characters in Arcane (gorgeous show; def recommend watching it) is a henchwoman. The things that make her work, imo (SPOILERS): 1\. **She has her own ideals/motives/ambitions** that are made clear when she's introduced (she's not just copying someone else's) 2\. She 'betrays' someone very early on for not aligning with those ideals. This establishes her as someone who's **capable of leaving when she wants** 3\. **It's not immediately clear to the audience why she committed to that betrayal**; it could've been for personal gain for all the audience knows 4\. She eventually **aligns with a group/leader that's wholly committed to the same ideals as her** 5\. The writers leverage the historic ambiguity in her loyalty by giving her **multiple opportunities to betray her new group for personal gain, only for her to stay loyal anyways** This is, imo, the perfect way to frame a henchperson in a way that lends them their own sense of agency and mystique. She's a capable fighter, a capable planner, and *could* replace the leader if she wanted to, but doesn't, because she sees any ally to her cause as an ally to her. She's fine playing second fiddle to a competent first. | Super human loyalty is interesting in followers. And if they have talents that the main character lacks you can have them outshine the main character for brief moments in the story. | 1 | 29,043 | 3 | ||
vahh33 | writing_train | 1 | How to write a follower character that seems as interesting and unique as the character they are following if not more ? This felt like a really interesting character design challenge for me. I am trying to write a character that is supposed to be a follower of another main character. But I seem to have trouble in creating them unique enough that they feel as a main character themselves and not just like a henchman that someone has to go through to reach the final boss.I want the character to truly believe in their leader and their ideals but also not come off as just a side-character that doesn't matter. They should have their own passion , drive and personality while still holding on to that belief. Is it possible to have something like that ? | ic3hnsl | ic4ner6 | 1,655,047,861 | 1,655,067,172 | 1 | 3 | I immediately thought of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel!” The character of Susie Myerson might be a good example for you to explore. | One of my favorite characters in Arcane (gorgeous show; def recommend watching it) is a henchwoman. The things that make her work, imo (SPOILERS): 1\. **She has her own ideals/motives/ambitions** that are made clear when she's introduced (she's not just copying someone else's) 2\. She 'betrays' someone very early on for not aligning with those ideals. This establishes her as someone who's **capable of leaving when she wants** 3\. **It's not immediately clear to the audience why she committed to that betrayal**; it could've been for personal gain for all the audience knows 4\. She eventually **aligns with a group/leader that's wholly committed to the same ideals as her** 5\. The writers leverage the historic ambiguity in her loyalty by giving her **multiple opportunities to betray her new group for personal gain, only for her to stay loyal anyways** This is, imo, the perfect way to frame a henchperson in a way that lends them their own sense of agency and mystique. She's a capable fighter, a capable planner, and *could* replace the leader if she wanted to, but doesn't, because she sees any ally to her cause as an ally to her. She's fine playing second fiddle to a competent first. | 0 | 19,311 | 3 | ||
vahh33 | writing_train | 1 | How to write a follower character that seems as interesting and unique as the character they are following if not more ? This felt like a really interesting character design challenge for me. I am trying to write a character that is supposed to be a follower of another main character. But I seem to have trouble in creating them unique enough that they feel as a main character themselves and not just like a henchman that someone has to go through to reach the final boss.I want the character to truly believe in their leader and their ideals but also not come off as just a side-character that doesn't matter. They should have their own passion , drive and personality while still holding on to that belief. Is it possible to have something like that ? | ic2z8qi | ic30brc | 1,655,038,129 | 1,655,038,778 | 1 | 2 | Super human loyalty is interesting in followers. And if they have talents that the main character lacks you can have them outshine the main character for brief moments in the story. | Do you know Siddhartha by Herman Hesse? The protagonist sees the Buddha (which is the main character of a whole religion of course) and praises him as much as everyone else, but recognizes that his path towards greatness is not the same as the Buddha's. So everyone blindly follows the Buddha and imitates him, whereas Siddhartha goes his own way, trying to be enlightened just like him, but consciously, on his own terms, creating his own path towards the common goal. So maybe make your ,follower' just as strong and give him his own personality that is just as great as the leader's without letting the both of them tread the same path. | 0 | 649 | 2 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | gzzys1z | gzzz8hc | 1,622,399,023 | 1,622,399,251 | 156 | 496 | Well yea. The idea or fantasy of something is usually going to be more exciting than the actual work it takes to get it down. I have pretty severe ADHD myself. My main motivation is memory loss. I write down my ideas in loosely organized files so I don’t forget them— because I will. While I’m doing that it snowballs (because ADHD) and I end up writing or workshopping. I also trick/reward my brain a lot. I have a set of things I like that I can do/enjoy while writing and only allow myself access to them if I’m actually doing something related to writing. Certain music albums, teas, snacks, etc. It’s feels like bribing a child, neurodivergent brains are a trip lol. | I think the first step is to let go of any guilt you carry about feeling this way. You're right, it is common, and yet I think a lot of writers feel guilty that writing feels like hard work. We feel like if we were meant to do this, it should feel good and right. But that's not true. All jobs are work and creative pursuits are not an exception. Some parts will make you feel giddy, other parts will make you want to teat your hair out. And none of it means you can't or shouldn't be a writer. Aaand I don't really have a ton more advice because I'm still in the middle of step one. 🙃 | 0 | 228 | 3.179487 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | gzzz8hc | gzzx4qt | 1,622,399,251 | 1,622,398,201 | 496 | 27 | I think the first step is to let go of any guilt you carry about feeling this way. You're right, it is common, and yet I think a lot of writers feel guilty that writing feels like hard work. We feel like if we were meant to do this, it should feel good and right. But that's not true. All jobs are work and creative pursuits are not an exception. Some parts will make you feel giddy, other parts will make you want to teat your hair out. And none of it means you can't or shouldn't be a writer. Aaand I don't really have a ton more advice because I'm still in the middle of step one. 🙃 | Nope but I have ADHD and feel the exact same so I will be following with interest. | 1 | 1,050 | 18.37037 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | gzzx4qt | gzzys1z | 1,622,398,201 | 1,622,399,023 | 27 | 156 | Nope but I have ADHD and feel the exact same so I will be following with interest. | Well yea. The idea or fantasy of something is usually going to be more exciting than the actual work it takes to get it down. I have pretty severe ADHD myself. My main motivation is memory loss. I write down my ideas in loosely organized files so I don’t forget them— because I will. While I’m doing that it snowballs (because ADHD) and I end up writing or workshopping. I also trick/reward my brain a lot. I have a set of things I like that I can do/enjoy while writing and only allow myself access to them if I’m actually doing something related to writing. Certain music albums, teas, snacks, etc. It’s feels like bribing a child, neurodivergent brains are a trip lol. | 0 | 822 | 5.777778 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | gzzx4qt | h004b5q | 1,622,398,201 | 1,622,401,752 | 27 | 34 | Nope but I have ADHD and feel the exact same so I will be following with interest. | Everyone goes through this. it really just comes down to forcing yourself to get the words out with self-discipline, the same way you’d force yourself to finish a research paper for school or something (I know, even that is easier said than done!) Having an outline is helpful to me personally because even if I feel demotivated or uninterested, I can look at my outline and be like, “Okay, this is the next event that needs to happen. I just need to describe it” and more often than not after I force myself a bit I start to enjoy it. Before I started outlining I would constantly start new projects and never get past a few chapters because I’d lose track of where I was going and give up. Since I started outlining I’ve managed to finish a lot more. | 0 | 3,551 | 1.259259 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h007llj | h00663v | 1,622,403,422 | 1,622,402,698 | 23 | 12 | I’m diagnosed with ADHD and I find that I write best when I have something else I need to do. Doesn’t help myself uni grades 😪 | Yes, here is the technique I use to develop productivity and regular writing habits: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SU8rDXp9oJ6GanDoQujV3kepLuwS5jwX_bpV66tjzi0/edit?usp=sharing Good luck to you. | 1 | 724 | 1.916667 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h005bk8 | h007llj | 1,622,402,269 | 1,622,403,422 | 11 | 23 | Yep! I vastly prefer the state of having already published a novel, rather than the state of actually writing the darn thing. YUCK! Huge difference! It's very much like the difference between having a great meal, and actually doing all the work to prepare it. And by that I mean being the farmer who sows the fields with crops and raises the livestock, then sells such goods; AND THEN being the people who butcher the livestock, package it, and ship it to markets, AND the people who deal with stocks of grains to prep them and ship them to markets; AND the truckers who move all this stuff; AND the store workers who then stock the inventory for buyers; AND the cooks who do final preparation of various dishes for those who consume them. Yes: I'd much rather just eat the meal, then do all the work trying to get it from being nothing, to being something. How to overcome the difficulty? Partly sheer will power. And partly learning how to trick yourself a zillion different ways into getting started on it anew every day. Because writing a book requires lots and lots of days. :-( I know whereof I speak, because I have published quite a few books. | I’m diagnosed with ADHD and I find that I write best when I have something else I need to do. Doesn’t help myself uni grades 😪 | 0 | 1,153 | 2.090909 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00663v | h00k8xm | 1,622,402,698 | 1,622,409,857 | 12 | 19 | Yes, here is the technique I use to develop productivity and regular writing habits: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SU8rDXp9oJ6GanDoQujV3kepLuwS5jwX_bpV66tjzi0/edit?usp=sharing Good luck to you. | This is something I struggle with too. I have journal entries going back almost a decade, filled with pages about how I want to write but can never get myself to actually sit down and do it. I'm only just starting to crawl out of that hole now. And I still ponder that question all the time: is this something I really enjoy, or do I just enjoy the idea of it? I figure if I've spent this many years thinking about it, and I get the sense of satisfaction that I get from having finished a writing sprint, then yeah, I do enjoy it. The problem is that it's *hard.* It's hard to take the thoughts inside my brain and put them onto paper, because it turns out that my thoughts aren't fully formed prose. Taking my ideas and turning them into actual writing is a translation job, and I'm not fluent in either language yet. What I found most helpful is letting go of expectations. Not that I can just completely let go, but as much as I'm able to. Knowing that the first draft is just the first draft, and I can revise it as much as I want until it's something I'm relatively happy with. So I will set a timer for 5, 10, maybe 20 minutes, and just go, without any expectation for quality. If I can make it through a sprint, I feel satisfied, no matter how shitty the writing is. | 0 | 7,159 | 1.583333 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00k8xm | h005bk8 | 1,622,409,857 | 1,622,402,269 | 19 | 11 | This is something I struggle with too. I have journal entries going back almost a decade, filled with pages about how I want to write but can never get myself to actually sit down and do it. I'm only just starting to crawl out of that hole now. And I still ponder that question all the time: is this something I really enjoy, or do I just enjoy the idea of it? I figure if I've spent this many years thinking about it, and I get the sense of satisfaction that I get from having finished a writing sprint, then yeah, I do enjoy it. The problem is that it's *hard.* It's hard to take the thoughts inside my brain and put them onto paper, because it turns out that my thoughts aren't fully formed prose. Taking my ideas and turning them into actual writing is a translation job, and I'm not fluent in either language yet. What I found most helpful is letting go of expectations. Not that I can just completely let go, but as much as I'm able to. Knowing that the first draft is just the first draft, and I can revise it as much as I want until it's something I'm relatively happy with. So I will set a timer for 5, 10, maybe 20 minutes, and just go, without any expectation for quality. If I can make it through a sprint, I feel satisfied, no matter how shitty the writing is. | Yep! I vastly prefer the state of having already published a novel, rather than the state of actually writing the darn thing. YUCK! Huge difference! It's very much like the difference between having a great meal, and actually doing all the work to prepare it. And by that I mean being the farmer who sows the fields with crops and raises the livestock, then sells such goods; AND THEN being the people who butcher the livestock, package it, and ship it to markets, AND the people who deal with stocks of grains to prep them and ship them to markets; AND the truckers who move all this stuff; AND the store workers who then stock the inventory for buyers; AND the cooks who do final preparation of various dishes for those who consume them. Yes: I'd much rather just eat the meal, then do all the work trying to get it from being nothing, to being something. How to overcome the difficulty? Partly sheer will power. And partly learning how to trick yourself a zillion different ways into getting started on it anew every day. Because writing a book requires lots and lots of days. :-( I know whereof I speak, because I have published quite a few books. | 1 | 7,588 | 1.727273 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00cuu8 | h00k8xm | 1,622,406,087 | 1,622,409,857 | 10 | 19 | Years ago a ballerina shared the most important advice she had ever gotten. She liked performance but not practice. It was, "Learn to like what you love." I have ADHD as well. and sitting at the desk typing for hours can be difficult. There are times when I must blow off energy. I love running and working out. (I also know that writing on redit is not what I should be doing. I know what happens next. I should be typing) | This is something I struggle with too. I have journal entries going back almost a decade, filled with pages about how I want to write but can never get myself to actually sit down and do it. I'm only just starting to crawl out of that hole now. And I still ponder that question all the time: is this something I really enjoy, or do I just enjoy the idea of it? I figure if I've spent this many years thinking about it, and I get the sense of satisfaction that I get from having finished a writing sprint, then yeah, I do enjoy it. The problem is that it's *hard.* It's hard to take the thoughts inside my brain and put them onto paper, because it turns out that my thoughts aren't fully formed prose. Taking my ideas and turning them into actual writing is a translation job, and I'm not fluent in either language yet. What I found most helpful is letting go of expectations. Not that I can just completely let go, but as much as I'm able to. Knowing that the first draft is just the first draft, and I can revise it as much as I want until it's something I'm relatively happy with. So I will set a timer for 5, 10, maybe 20 minutes, and just go, without any expectation for quality. If I can make it through a sprint, I feel satisfied, no matter how shitty the writing is. | 0 | 3,770 | 1.9 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00k8xm | h007zbc | 1,622,409,857 | 1,622,403,616 | 19 | 3 | This is something I struggle with too. I have journal entries going back almost a decade, filled with pages about how I want to write but can never get myself to actually sit down and do it. I'm only just starting to crawl out of that hole now. And I still ponder that question all the time: is this something I really enjoy, or do I just enjoy the idea of it? I figure if I've spent this many years thinking about it, and I get the sense of satisfaction that I get from having finished a writing sprint, then yeah, I do enjoy it. The problem is that it's *hard.* It's hard to take the thoughts inside my brain and put them onto paper, because it turns out that my thoughts aren't fully formed prose. Taking my ideas and turning them into actual writing is a translation job, and I'm not fluent in either language yet. What I found most helpful is letting go of expectations. Not that I can just completely let go, but as much as I'm able to. Knowing that the first draft is just the first draft, and I can revise it as much as I want until it's something I'm relatively happy with. So I will set a timer for 5, 10, maybe 20 minutes, and just go, without any expectation for quality. If I can make it through a sprint, I feel satisfied, no matter how shitty the writing is. | I feel this in my bones. | 1 | 6,241 | 6.333333 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00k8xm | h00epxn | 1,622,409,857 | 1,622,407,031 | 19 | 3 | This is something I struggle with too. I have journal entries going back almost a decade, filled with pages about how I want to write but can never get myself to actually sit down and do it. I'm only just starting to crawl out of that hole now. And I still ponder that question all the time: is this something I really enjoy, or do I just enjoy the idea of it? I figure if I've spent this many years thinking about it, and I get the sense of satisfaction that I get from having finished a writing sprint, then yeah, I do enjoy it. The problem is that it's *hard.* It's hard to take the thoughts inside my brain and put them onto paper, because it turns out that my thoughts aren't fully formed prose. Taking my ideas and turning them into actual writing is a translation job, and I'm not fluent in either language yet. What I found most helpful is letting go of expectations. Not that I can just completely let go, but as much as I'm able to. Knowing that the first draft is just the first draft, and I can revise it as much as I want until it's something I'm relatively happy with. So I will set a timer for 5, 10, maybe 20 minutes, and just go, without any expectation for quality. If I can make it through a sprint, I feel satisfied, no matter how shitty the writing is. | Break up your goal into manageable chunks that can be accomplished in short bursts. The pomodoro technique is a good method. Write for a 25 minute session and then stop. Do something else. Do another session that day if you want, or not. You could do shorter sessions, too, but do them frequently. | 1 | 2,826 | 6.333333 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00k8xm | h00h361 | 1,622,409,857 | 1,622,408,240 | 19 | 3 | This is something I struggle with too. I have journal entries going back almost a decade, filled with pages about how I want to write but can never get myself to actually sit down and do it. I'm only just starting to crawl out of that hole now. And I still ponder that question all the time: is this something I really enjoy, or do I just enjoy the idea of it? I figure if I've spent this many years thinking about it, and I get the sense of satisfaction that I get from having finished a writing sprint, then yeah, I do enjoy it. The problem is that it's *hard.* It's hard to take the thoughts inside my brain and put them onto paper, because it turns out that my thoughts aren't fully formed prose. Taking my ideas and turning them into actual writing is a translation job, and I'm not fluent in either language yet. What I found most helpful is letting go of expectations. Not that I can just completely let go, but as much as I'm able to. Knowing that the first draft is just the first draft, and I can revise it as much as I want until it's something I'm relatively happy with. So I will set a timer for 5, 10, maybe 20 minutes, and just go, without any expectation for quality. If I can make it through a sprint, I feel satisfied, no matter how shitty the writing is. | You don't say why you're looking at something substantial. Is substantial important to you, or is that something you feel you ought to do? When you say narrative, I'm assuming you're leaning to prose. but that doesn't mean you have to follow the David Foster Wallace route. If short glimpses matter more to you, perhaps you're a Wigleaf / Smokelong kind of writer. Here's the former's top 50 tiny proses of last year: https://wigleaf.com/2020top501.htm If 'substantial' is something you are interested in, though, there's no way to achieve that without a certain amount of pushing through what can be tedious and demotivating. I'm guessing from your ADHD reference you already have coping strategies for other tedious and demotivating things? You might be able to bring those in, but here's a couple I use: I find it very hard to put myself through tedious and demotivating things for my own sake, but I'll do them for other people who expect them; do you have a writers' group near you, or an online one to try? (Not like a subreddit; I need a group that meets up and says 'what did you produce this week?', to make sure I do produce something.) Trello. (I know that makes it sound like more work!) The poet Michael Donaghy used to have folders for his poems in progress called Safe, Safer and Safest - his final, posthumous collection is called Safest in memory of that. Those could have been trello columns. I've gotten more productive since I started using trello boards to keep track of my texts that are safe, that need work, that are on the verge of getting rid of. If I lose focus on one card, I can recognise and accept that, and drop in on another. but honestly, overall? there's going to be tedium, and that's okay. Don't wish it away. Having a background hum of tedium makes those brilliant moments of flow, where you're on fire and the story is pulsing and living in the heat of your work, better. | 1 | 1,617 | 6.333333 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h005bk8 | h00663v | 1,622,402,269 | 1,622,402,698 | 11 | 12 | Yep! I vastly prefer the state of having already published a novel, rather than the state of actually writing the darn thing. YUCK! Huge difference! It's very much like the difference between having a great meal, and actually doing all the work to prepare it. And by that I mean being the farmer who sows the fields with crops and raises the livestock, then sells such goods; AND THEN being the people who butcher the livestock, package it, and ship it to markets, AND the people who deal with stocks of grains to prep them and ship them to markets; AND the truckers who move all this stuff; AND the store workers who then stock the inventory for buyers; AND the cooks who do final preparation of various dishes for those who consume them. Yes: I'd much rather just eat the meal, then do all the work trying to get it from being nothing, to being something. How to overcome the difficulty? Partly sheer will power. And partly learning how to trick yourself a zillion different ways into getting started on it anew every day. Because writing a book requires lots and lots of days. :-( I know whereof I speak, because I have published quite a few books. | Yes, here is the technique I use to develop productivity and regular writing habits: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SU8rDXp9oJ6GanDoQujV3kepLuwS5jwX_bpV66tjzi0/edit?usp=sharing Good luck to you. | 0 | 429 | 1.090909 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h007zbc | h00cuu8 | 1,622,403,616 | 1,622,406,087 | 3 | 10 | I feel this in my bones. | Years ago a ballerina shared the most important advice she had ever gotten. She liked performance but not practice. It was, "Learn to like what you love." I have ADHD as well. and sitting at the desk typing for hours can be difficult. There are times when I must blow off energy. I love running and working out. (I also know that writing on redit is not what I should be doing. I know what happens next. I should be typing) | 0 | 2,471 | 3.333333 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00tzo4 | h00op6r | 1,622,414,997 | 1,622,412,136 | 8 | 4 | Yeah, this hits home. Writing can be pretty miserable, so I've wondered plenty whether it's something I should be doing at all. I've also been writing professionally for 5+ years at this point, so I've had some time to experiment under pressure. I've written 20+ short stories and won a few competitions. None of this is to brag, it's to let you know that I'm in the same boat as you, I just have the background of completing a bunch of stuff, for whatever that's worth. It also means I have a frame of reference. I've been able to look back at past projects and think about my emotional state during each of them. Some were a slog. I once spent six months writing \~19k words. Can you imagine? But I finished the thing, and now I can evaluate that ordeal and try to figure out why I hated it so much, why it was such an embuggered, miserable thing to do. What I've come to is this: **when I write to produce a product, I always** ***always*** **hate it.** **When I write to discover, I love it more than just about anything else.** So yeah, you could say I've figured out that I'm a discovery writer. But it goes beyond that. I can have a bit of an outline and still enjoy the end product. It's when the outline strangleholds my creativity and prevents me from wandering that I end up hating the process. I suspect I have ADHD as well, but I've never been diagnosed. Focusing gives me an actual headache. I'll do almost anything not to start my work for the day. Once I get into a rhythm, it gets easier, but I have a lot of the difficulties you've described. So of course my fickle, wandering mind needs some freedom. Of course I've got to be able to roam and discovery in the process. I need to feel stimulated. I need to be engaged. I don't think that's so strange, and I don't think it means I should stop writing. I think it just means I need to tailor my habits to my psyche. Write less stringent outlines. Leave some room to wander. Treat writing more as a conversation with myself than a grind to produce a product. Worry less about the end result and more about this moment; how I *as a writer* can enjoy it more. Not sure if that's helpful to you at all, but that's been my experience so far. These are pretty normal feelings. Don't let them keep you from writing; just trying to develop your writing habits in a way that's conducive to how you *personally* need to do your writing. | that's true about pretty much everything, is it not? the idea of having achieved something and being successful is more exciting than having to actually do the work. | 1 | 2,861 | 2 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00tzo4 | h00rsb8 | 1,622,414,997 | 1,622,413,776 | 8 | 4 | Yeah, this hits home. Writing can be pretty miserable, so I've wondered plenty whether it's something I should be doing at all. I've also been writing professionally for 5+ years at this point, so I've had some time to experiment under pressure. I've written 20+ short stories and won a few competitions. None of this is to brag, it's to let you know that I'm in the same boat as you, I just have the background of completing a bunch of stuff, for whatever that's worth. It also means I have a frame of reference. I've been able to look back at past projects and think about my emotional state during each of them. Some were a slog. I once spent six months writing \~19k words. Can you imagine? But I finished the thing, and now I can evaluate that ordeal and try to figure out why I hated it so much, why it was such an embuggered, miserable thing to do. What I've come to is this: **when I write to produce a product, I always** ***always*** **hate it.** **When I write to discover, I love it more than just about anything else.** So yeah, you could say I've figured out that I'm a discovery writer. But it goes beyond that. I can have a bit of an outline and still enjoy the end product. It's when the outline strangleholds my creativity and prevents me from wandering that I end up hating the process. I suspect I have ADHD as well, but I've never been diagnosed. Focusing gives me an actual headache. I'll do almost anything not to start my work for the day. Once I get into a rhythm, it gets easier, but I have a lot of the difficulties you've described. So of course my fickle, wandering mind needs some freedom. Of course I've got to be able to roam and discovery in the process. I need to feel stimulated. I need to be engaged. I don't think that's so strange, and I don't think it means I should stop writing. I think it just means I need to tailor my habits to my psyche. Write less stringent outlines. Leave some room to wander. Treat writing more as a conversation with myself than a grind to produce a product. Worry less about the end result and more about this moment; how I *as a writer* can enjoy it more. Not sure if that's helpful to you at all, but that's been my experience so far. These are pretty normal feelings. Don't let them keep you from writing; just trying to develop your writing habits in a way that's conducive to how you *personally* need to do your writing. | There's a reason writing is a tough gig. The fact that it's hard is a reminder that it's worth doing. | 1 | 1,221 | 2 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00tzo4 | h007zbc | 1,622,414,997 | 1,622,403,616 | 8 | 3 | Yeah, this hits home. Writing can be pretty miserable, so I've wondered plenty whether it's something I should be doing at all. I've also been writing professionally for 5+ years at this point, so I've had some time to experiment under pressure. I've written 20+ short stories and won a few competitions. None of this is to brag, it's to let you know that I'm in the same boat as you, I just have the background of completing a bunch of stuff, for whatever that's worth. It also means I have a frame of reference. I've been able to look back at past projects and think about my emotional state during each of them. Some were a slog. I once spent six months writing \~19k words. Can you imagine? But I finished the thing, and now I can evaluate that ordeal and try to figure out why I hated it so much, why it was such an embuggered, miserable thing to do. What I've come to is this: **when I write to produce a product, I always** ***always*** **hate it.** **When I write to discover, I love it more than just about anything else.** So yeah, you could say I've figured out that I'm a discovery writer. But it goes beyond that. I can have a bit of an outline and still enjoy the end product. It's when the outline strangleholds my creativity and prevents me from wandering that I end up hating the process. I suspect I have ADHD as well, but I've never been diagnosed. Focusing gives me an actual headache. I'll do almost anything not to start my work for the day. Once I get into a rhythm, it gets easier, but I have a lot of the difficulties you've described. So of course my fickle, wandering mind needs some freedom. Of course I've got to be able to roam and discovery in the process. I need to feel stimulated. I need to be engaged. I don't think that's so strange, and I don't think it means I should stop writing. I think it just means I need to tailor my habits to my psyche. Write less stringent outlines. Leave some room to wander. Treat writing more as a conversation with myself than a grind to produce a product. Worry less about the end result and more about this moment; how I *as a writer* can enjoy it more. Not sure if that's helpful to you at all, but that's been my experience so far. These are pretty normal feelings. Don't let them keep you from writing; just trying to develop your writing habits in a way that's conducive to how you *personally* need to do your writing. | I feel this in my bones. | 1 | 11,381 | 2.666667 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00tzo4 | h00epxn | 1,622,414,997 | 1,622,407,031 | 8 | 3 | Yeah, this hits home. Writing can be pretty miserable, so I've wondered plenty whether it's something I should be doing at all. I've also been writing professionally for 5+ years at this point, so I've had some time to experiment under pressure. I've written 20+ short stories and won a few competitions. None of this is to brag, it's to let you know that I'm in the same boat as you, I just have the background of completing a bunch of stuff, for whatever that's worth. It also means I have a frame of reference. I've been able to look back at past projects and think about my emotional state during each of them. Some were a slog. I once spent six months writing \~19k words. Can you imagine? But I finished the thing, and now I can evaluate that ordeal and try to figure out why I hated it so much, why it was such an embuggered, miserable thing to do. What I've come to is this: **when I write to produce a product, I always** ***always*** **hate it.** **When I write to discover, I love it more than just about anything else.** So yeah, you could say I've figured out that I'm a discovery writer. But it goes beyond that. I can have a bit of an outline and still enjoy the end product. It's when the outline strangleholds my creativity and prevents me from wandering that I end up hating the process. I suspect I have ADHD as well, but I've never been diagnosed. Focusing gives me an actual headache. I'll do almost anything not to start my work for the day. Once I get into a rhythm, it gets easier, but I have a lot of the difficulties you've described. So of course my fickle, wandering mind needs some freedom. Of course I've got to be able to roam and discovery in the process. I need to feel stimulated. I need to be engaged. I don't think that's so strange, and I don't think it means I should stop writing. I think it just means I need to tailor my habits to my psyche. Write less stringent outlines. Leave some room to wander. Treat writing more as a conversation with myself than a grind to produce a product. Worry less about the end result and more about this moment; how I *as a writer* can enjoy it more. Not sure if that's helpful to you at all, but that's been my experience so far. These are pretty normal feelings. Don't let them keep you from writing; just trying to develop your writing habits in a way that's conducive to how you *personally* need to do your writing. | Break up your goal into manageable chunks that can be accomplished in short bursts. The pomodoro technique is a good method. Write for a 25 minute session and then stop. Do something else. Do another session that day if you want, or not. You could do shorter sessions, too, but do them frequently. | 1 | 7,966 | 2.666667 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00tzo4 | h00h361 | 1,622,414,997 | 1,622,408,240 | 8 | 3 | Yeah, this hits home. Writing can be pretty miserable, so I've wondered plenty whether it's something I should be doing at all. I've also been writing professionally for 5+ years at this point, so I've had some time to experiment under pressure. I've written 20+ short stories and won a few competitions. None of this is to brag, it's to let you know that I'm in the same boat as you, I just have the background of completing a bunch of stuff, for whatever that's worth. It also means I have a frame of reference. I've been able to look back at past projects and think about my emotional state during each of them. Some were a slog. I once spent six months writing \~19k words. Can you imagine? But I finished the thing, and now I can evaluate that ordeal and try to figure out why I hated it so much, why it was such an embuggered, miserable thing to do. What I've come to is this: **when I write to produce a product, I always** ***always*** **hate it.** **When I write to discover, I love it more than just about anything else.** So yeah, you could say I've figured out that I'm a discovery writer. But it goes beyond that. I can have a bit of an outline and still enjoy the end product. It's when the outline strangleholds my creativity and prevents me from wandering that I end up hating the process. I suspect I have ADHD as well, but I've never been diagnosed. Focusing gives me an actual headache. I'll do almost anything not to start my work for the day. Once I get into a rhythm, it gets easier, but I have a lot of the difficulties you've described. So of course my fickle, wandering mind needs some freedom. Of course I've got to be able to roam and discovery in the process. I need to feel stimulated. I need to be engaged. I don't think that's so strange, and I don't think it means I should stop writing. I think it just means I need to tailor my habits to my psyche. Write less stringent outlines. Leave some room to wander. Treat writing more as a conversation with myself than a grind to produce a product. Worry less about the end result and more about this moment; how I *as a writer* can enjoy it more. Not sure if that's helpful to you at all, but that's been my experience so far. These are pretty normal feelings. Don't let them keep you from writing; just trying to develop your writing habits in a way that's conducive to how you *personally* need to do your writing. | You don't say why you're looking at something substantial. Is substantial important to you, or is that something you feel you ought to do? When you say narrative, I'm assuming you're leaning to prose. but that doesn't mean you have to follow the David Foster Wallace route. If short glimpses matter more to you, perhaps you're a Wigleaf / Smokelong kind of writer. Here's the former's top 50 tiny proses of last year: https://wigleaf.com/2020top501.htm If 'substantial' is something you are interested in, though, there's no way to achieve that without a certain amount of pushing through what can be tedious and demotivating. I'm guessing from your ADHD reference you already have coping strategies for other tedious and demotivating things? You might be able to bring those in, but here's a couple I use: I find it very hard to put myself through tedious and demotivating things for my own sake, but I'll do them for other people who expect them; do you have a writers' group near you, or an online one to try? (Not like a subreddit; I need a group that meets up and says 'what did you produce this week?', to make sure I do produce something.) Trello. (I know that makes it sound like more work!) The poet Michael Donaghy used to have folders for his poems in progress called Safe, Safer and Safest - his final, posthumous collection is called Safest in memory of that. Those could have been trello columns. I've gotten more productive since I started using trello boards to keep track of my texts that are safe, that need work, that are on the verge of getting rid of. If I lose focus on one card, I can recognise and accept that, and drop in on another. but honestly, overall? there's going to be tedium, and that's okay. Don't wish it away. Having a background hum of tedium makes those brilliant moments of flow, where you're on fire and the story is pulsing and living in the heat of your work, better. | 1 | 6,757 | 2.666667 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00tzo4 | h00lqs1 | 1,622,414,997 | 1,622,410,626 | 8 | 2 | Yeah, this hits home. Writing can be pretty miserable, so I've wondered plenty whether it's something I should be doing at all. I've also been writing professionally for 5+ years at this point, so I've had some time to experiment under pressure. I've written 20+ short stories and won a few competitions. None of this is to brag, it's to let you know that I'm in the same boat as you, I just have the background of completing a bunch of stuff, for whatever that's worth. It also means I have a frame of reference. I've been able to look back at past projects and think about my emotional state during each of them. Some were a slog. I once spent six months writing \~19k words. Can you imagine? But I finished the thing, and now I can evaluate that ordeal and try to figure out why I hated it so much, why it was such an embuggered, miserable thing to do. What I've come to is this: **when I write to produce a product, I always** ***always*** **hate it.** **When I write to discover, I love it more than just about anything else.** So yeah, you could say I've figured out that I'm a discovery writer. But it goes beyond that. I can have a bit of an outline and still enjoy the end product. It's when the outline strangleholds my creativity and prevents me from wandering that I end up hating the process. I suspect I have ADHD as well, but I've never been diagnosed. Focusing gives me an actual headache. I'll do almost anything not to start my work for the day. Once I get into a rhythm, it gets easier, but I have a lot of the difficulties you've described. So of course my fickle, wandering mind needs some freedom. Of course I've got to be able to roam and discovery in the process. I need to feel stimulated. I need to be engaged. I don't think that's so strange, and I don't think it means I should stop writing. I think it just means I need to tailor my habits to my psyche. Write less stringent outlines. Leave some room to wander. Treat writing more as a conversation with myself than a grind to produce a product. Worry less about the end result and more about this moment; how I *as a writer* can enjoy it more. Not sure if that's helpful to you at all, but that's been my experience so far. These are pretty normal feelings. Don't let them keep you from writing; just trying to develop your writing habits in a way that's conducive to how you *personally* need to do your writing. | It might be a sign that the type of writing you are currently trying to do is not for you, to be honest. Not in a judgemental way, just in a "is that an activity that inherently brings you joy?" way. Maybe there are different outlets that will suit you better, like making scenarios for table top RPGs, or maybe you just need to sporadically fill a notebook/online journal every couple of weeks with all your thoughts. | 1 | 4,371 | 4 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00tzo4 | h00niu0 | 1,622,414,997 | 1,622,411,538 | 8 | 2 | Yeah, this hits home. Writing can be pretty miserable, so I've wondered plenty whether it's something I should be doing at all. I've also been writing professionally for 5+ years at this point, so I've had some time to experiment under pressure. I've written 20+ short stories and won a few competitions. None of this is to brag, it's to let you know that I'm in the same boat as you, I just have the background of completing a bunch of stuff, for whatever that's worth. It also means I have a frame of reference. I've been able to look back at past projects and think about my emotional state during each of them. Some were a slog. I once spent six months writing \~19k words. Can you imagine? But I finished the thing, and now I can evaluate that ordeal and try to figure out why I hated it so much, why it was such an embuggered, miserable thing to do. What I've come to is this: **when I write to produce a product, I always** ***always*** **hate it.** **When I write to discover, I love it more than just about anything else.** So yeah, you could say I've figured out that I'm a discovery writer. But it goes beyond that. I can have a bit of an outline and still enjoy the end product. It's when the outline strangleholds my creativity and prevents me from wandering that I end up hating the process. I suspect I have ADHD as well, but I've never been diagnosed. Focusing gives me an actual headache. I'll do almost anything not to start my work for the day. Once I get into a rhythm, it gets easier, but I have a lot of the difficulties you've described. So of course my fickle, wandering mind needs some freedom. Of course I've got to be able to roam and discovery in the process. I need to feel stimulated. I need to be engaged. I don't think that's so strange, and I don't think it means I should stop writing. I think it just means I need to tailor my habits to my psyche. Write less stringent outlines. Leave some room to wander. Treat writing more as a conversation with myself than a grind to produce a product. Worry less about the end result and more about this moment; how I *as a writer* can enjoy it more. Not sure if that's helpful to you at all, but that's been my experience so far. These are pretty normal feelings. Don't let them keep you from writing; just trying to develop your writing habits in a way that's conducive to how you *personally* need to do your writing. | I don't have ADHD, but I kinda understand. I love creating the structure of the story, planning character arcs and even thinking about the narrative's themes. But when it comes to actually writing all that I get stuck: everything stops working and I cant figure out how to fix it while being true to what I planned. I think it's a problem of perfeccionism: I have these great ideas, set high expectations and, naturally, I fail to meet them. The ideas feel perfect, but actually writing them reveals their flaws. So I don't know, maybe we should just lower our expectations and simply try to do our best. Get less attached to the ideas and concepts, to allow us to shape them into a finished narrative, even if it is flawed. | 1 | 3,459 | 4 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00nuiz | h00tzo4 | 1,622,411,701 | 1,622,414,997 | 2 | 8 | I am slowly getting rid of my primary inhibitor: the thought that what I write is not good enough. "Just write" is indeed a good piece of advice. You can't revise it if you haven't written it. | Yeah, this hits home. Writing can be pretty miserable, so I've wondered plenty whether it's something I should be doing at all. I've also been writing professionally for 5+ years at this point, so I've had some time to experiment under pressure. I've written 20+ short stories and won a few competitions. None of this is to brag, it's to let you know that I'm in the same boat as you, I just have the background of completing a bunch of stuff, for whatever that's worth. It also means I have a frame of reference. I've been able to look back at past projects and think about my emotional state during each of them. Some were a slog. I once spent six months writing \~19k words. Can you imagine? But I finished the thing, and now I can evaluate that ordeal and try to figure out why I hated it so much, why it was such an embuggered, miserable thing to do. What I've come to is this: **when I write to produce a product, I always** ***always*** **hate it.** **When I write to discover, I love it more than just about anything else.** So yeah, you could say I've figured out that I'm a discovery writer. But it goes beyond that. I can have a bit of an outline and still enjoy the end product. It's when the outline strangleholds my creativity and prevents me from wandering that I end up hating the process. I suspect I have ADHD as well, but I've never been diagnosed. Focusing gives me an actual headache. I'll do almost anything not to start my work for the day. Once I get into a rhythm, it gets easier, but I have a lot of the difficulties you've described. So of course my fickle, wandering mind needs some freedom. Of course I've got to be able to roam and discovery in the process. I need to feel stimulated. I need to be engaged. I don't think that's so strange, and I don't think it means I should stop writing. I think it just means I need to tailor my habits to my psyche. Write less stringent outlines. Leave some room to wander. Treat writing more as a conversation with myself than a grind to produce a product. Worry less about the end result and more about this moment; how I *as a writer* can enjoy it more. Not sure if that's helpful to you at all, but that's been my experience so far. These are pretty normal feelings. Don't let them keep you from writing; just trying to develop your writing habits in a way that's conducive to how you *personally* need to do your writing. | 0 | 3,296 | 4 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00tzo4 | h00r7lp | 1,622,414,997 | 1,622,413,466 | 8 | 2 | Yeah, this hits home. Writing can be pretty miserable, so I've wondered plenty whether it's something I should be doing at all. I've also been writing professionally for 5+ years at this point, so I've had some time to experiment under pressure. I've written 20+ short stories and won a few competitions. None of this is to brag, it's to let you know that I'm in the same boat as you, I just have the background of completing a bunch of stuff, for whatever that's worth. It also means I have a frame of reference. I've been able to look back at past projects and think about my emotional state during each of them. Some were a slog. I once spent six months writing \~19k words. Can you imagine? But I finished the thing, and now I can evaluate that ordeal and try to figure out why I hated it so much, why it was such an embuggered, miserable thing to do. What I've come to is this: **when I write to produce a product, I always** ***always*** **hate it.** **When I write to discover, I love it more than just about anything else.** So yeah, you could say I've figured out that I'm a discovery writer. But it goes beyond that. I can have a bit of an outline and still enjoy the end product. It's when the outline strangleholds my creativity and prevents me from wandering that I end up hating the process. I suspect I have ADHD as well, but I've never been diagnosed. Focusing gives me an actual headache. I'll do almost anything not to start my work for the day. Once I get into a rhythm, it gets easier, but I have a lot of the difficulties you've described. So of course my fickle, wandering mind needs some freedom. Of course I've got to be able to roam and discovery in the process. I need to feel stimulated. I need to be engaged. I don't think that's so strange, and I don't think it means I should stop writing. I think it just means I need to tailor my habits to my psyche. Write less stringent outlines. Leave some room to wander. Treat writing more as a conversation with myself than a grind to produce a product. Worry less about the end result and more about this moment; how I *as a writer* can enjoy it more. Not sure if that's helpful to you at all, but that's been my experience so far. These are pretty normal feelings. Don't let them keep you from writing; just trying to develop your writing habits in a way that's conducive to how you *personally* need to do your writing. | I’m still in the middle of swollowing the pill/solution to this problem. The solution is a mixture of understanding that writing success is mostly marketing…and I can’t wrap my head around the marketing part. | 1 | 1,531 | 4 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00tzo4 | h00smsn | 1,622,414,997 | 1,622,414,240 | 8 | 2 | Yeah, this hits home. Writing can be pretty miserable, so I've wondered plenty whether it's something I should be doing at all. I've also been writing professionally for 5+ years at this point, so I've had some time to experiment under pressure. I've written 20+ short stories and won a few competitions. None of this is to brag, it's to let you know that I'm in the same boat as you, I just have the background of completing a bunch of stuff, for whatever that's worth. It also means I have a frame of reference. I've been able to look back at past projects and think about my emotional state during each of them. Some were a slog. I once spent six months writing \~19k words. Can you imagine? But I finished the thing, and now I can evaluate that ordeal and try to figure out why I hated it so much, why it was such an embuggered, miserable thing to do. What I've come to is this: **when I write to produce a product, I always** ***always*** **hate it.** **When I write to discover, I love it more than just about anything else.** So yeah, you could say I've figured out that I'm a discovery writer. But it goes beyond that. I can have a bit of an outline and still enjoy the end product. It's when the outline strangleholds my creativity and prevents me from wandering that I end up hating the process. I suspect I have ADHD as well, but I've never been diagnosed. Focusing gives me an actual headache. I'll do almost anything not to start my work for the day. Once I get into a rhythm, it gets easier, but I have a lot of the difficulties you've described. So of course my fickle, wandering mind needs some freedom. Of course I've got to be able to roam and discovery in the process. I need to feel stimulated. I need to be engaged. I don't think that's so strange, and I don't think it means I should stop writing. I think it just means I need to tailor my habits to my psyche. Write less stringent outlines. Leave some room to wander. Treat writing more as a conversation with myself than a grind to produce a product. Worry less about the end result and more about this moment; how I *as a writer* can enjoy it more. Not sure if that's helpful to you at all, but that's been my experience so far. These are pretty normal feelings. Don't let them keep you from writing; just trying to develop your writing habits in a way that's conducive to how you *personally* need to do your writing. | Well, that’s you and the rest of the world lmao. | 1 | 757 | 4 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00tzo4 | h00sy1k | 1,622,414,997 | 1,622,414,413 | 8 | 2 | Yeah, this hits home. Writing can be pretty miserable, so I've wondered plenty whether it's something I should be doing at all. I've also been writing professionally for 5+ years at this point, so I've had some time to experiment under pressure. I've written 20+ short stories and won a few competitions. None of this is to brag, it's to let you know that I'm in the same boat as you, I just have the background of completing a bunch of stuff, for whatever that's worth. It also means I have a frame of reference. I've been able to look back at past projects and think about my emotional state during each of them. Some were a slog. I once spent six months writing \~19k words. Can you imagine? But I finished the thing, and now I can evaluate that ordeal and try to figure out why I hated it so much, why it was such an embuggered, miserable thing to do. What I've come to is this: **when I write to produce a product, I always** ***always*** **hate it.** **When I write to discover, I love it more than just about anything else.** So yeah, you could say I've figured out that I'm a discovery writer. But it goes beyond that. I can have a bit of an outline and still enjoy the end product. It's when the outline strangleholds my creativity and prevents me from wandering that I end up hating the process. I suspect I have ADHD as well, but I've never been diagnosed. Focusing gives me an actual headache. I'll do almost anything not to start my work for the day. Once I get into a rhythm, it gets easier, but I have a lot of the difficulties you've described. So of course my fickle, wandering mind needs some freedom. Of course I've got to be able to roam and discovery in the process. I need to feel stimulated. I need to be engaged. I don't think that's so strange, and I don't think it means I should stop writing. I think it just means I need to tailor my habits to my psyche. Write less stringent outlines. Leave some room to wander. Treat writing more as a conversation with myself than a grind to produce a product. Worry less about the end result and more about this moment; how I *as a writer* can enjoy it more. Not sure if that's helpful to you at all, but that's been my experience so far. These are pretty normal feelings. Don't let them keep you from writing; just trying to develop your writing habits in a way that's conducive to how you *personally* need to do your writing. | Uhhmmm I’m pretty sure you just described half the “writers” here. | 1 | 584 | 4 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h014jno | h00wukt | 1,622,420,958 | 1,622,416,603 | 8 | 4 | > I love ~~creating~~ narratives and characters and ~~expressing~~ myself ~~through my writing~~, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then ~~phrasing~~ *imagining how I can use* them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning Fixed it for ya. You cannot create anything if you’re unwilling or unable to go through the motions of creation. If the tedium of writing is such that it keeps you from doing any actual writing, then you’re not really a writer, right? | Dorothy Parker famously said “I hate writing; I love having written.” It can be a very painful process. And at the end of the day, it’s work. There are parts that are fun and parts that are a slog. | 1 | 4,355 | 2 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h014jno | h00op6r | 1,622,420,958 | 1,622,412,136 | 8 | 4 | > I love ~~creating~~ narratives and characters and ~~expressing~~ myself ~~through my writing~~, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then ~~phrasing~~ *imagining how I can use* them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning Fixed it for ya. You cannot create anything if you’re unwilling or unable to go through the motions of creation. If the tedium of writing is such that it keeps you from doing any actual writing, then you’re not really a writer, right? | that's true about pretty much everything, is it not? the idea of having achieved something and being successful is more exciting than having to actually do the work. | 1 | 8,822 | 2 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00rsb8 | h014jno | 1,622,413,776 | 1,622,420,958 | 4 | 8 | There's a reason writing is a tough gig. The fact that it's hard is a reminder that it's worth doing. | > I love ~~creating~~ narratives and characters and ~~expressing~~ myself ~~through my writing~~, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then ~~phrasing~~ *imagining how I can use* them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning Fixed it for ya. You cannot create anything if you’re unwilling or unable to go through the motions of creation. If the tedium of writing is such that it keeps you from doing any actual writing, then you’re not really a writer, right? | 0 | 7,182 | 2 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h014jno | h007zbc | 1,622,420,958 | 1,622,403,616 | 8 | 3 | > I love ~~creating~~ narratives and characters and ~~expressing~~ myself ~~through my writing~~, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then ~~phrasing~~ *imagining how I can use* them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning Fixed it for ya. You cannot create anything if you’re unwilling or unable to go through the motions of creation. If the tedium of writing is such that it keeps you from doing any actual writing, then you’re not really a writer, right? | I feel this in my bones. | 1 | 17,342 | 2.666667 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h014jno | h00epxn | 1,622,420,958 | 1,622,407,031 | 8 | 3 | > I love ~~creating~~ narratives and characters and ~~expressing~~ myself ~~through my writing~~, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then ~~phrasing~~ *imagining how I can use* them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning Fixed it for ya. You cannot create anything if you’re unwilling or unable to go through the motions of creation. If the tedium of writing is such that it keeps you from doing any actual writing, then you’re not really a writer, right? | Break up your goal into manageable chunks that can be accomplished in short bursts. The pomodoro technique is a good method. Write for a 25 minute session and then stop. Do something else. Do another session that day if you want, or not. You could do shorter sessions, too, but do them frequently. | 1 | 13,927 | 2.666667 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00h361 | h014jno | 1,622,408,240 | 1,622,420,958 | 3 | 8 | You don't say why you're looking at something substantial. Is substantial important to you, or is that something you feel you ought to do? When you say narrative, I'm assuming you're leaning to prose. but that doesn't mean you have to follow the David Foster Wallace route. If short glimpses matter more to you, perhaps you're a Wigleaf / Smokelong kind of writer. Here's the former's top 50 tiny proses of last year: https://wigleaf.com/2020top501.htm If 'substantial' is something you are interested in, though, there's no way to achieve that without a certain amount of pushing through what can be tedious and demotivating. I'm guessing from your ADHD reference you already have coping strategies for other tedious and demotivating things? You might be able to bring those in, but here's a couple I use: I find it very hard to put myself through tedious and demotivating things for my own sake, but I'll do them for other people who expect them; do you have a writers' group near you, or an online one to try? (Not like a subreddit; I need a group that meets up and says 'what did you produce this week?', to make sure I do produce something.) Trello. (I know that makes it sound like more work!) The poet Michael Donaghy used to have folders for his poems in progress called Safe, Safer and Safest - his final, posthumous collection is called Safest in memory of that. Those could have been trello columns. I've gotten more productive since I started using trello boards to keep track of my texts that are safe, that need work, that are on the verge of getting rid of. If I lose focus on one card, I can recognise and accept that, and drop in on another. but honestly, overall? there's going to be tedium, and that's okay. Don't wish it away. Having a background hum of tedium makes those brilliant moments of flow, where you're on fire and the story is pulsing and living in the heat of your work, better. | > I love ~~creating~~ narratives and characters and ~~expressing~~ myself ~~through my writing~~, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then ~~phrasing~~ *imagining how I can use* them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning Fixed it for ya. You cannot create anything if you’re unwilling or unable to go through the motions of creation. If the tedium of writing is such that it keeps you from doing any actual writing, then you’re not really a writer, right? | 0 | 12,718 | 2.666667 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h014jno | h00lqs1 | 1,622,420,958 | 1,622,410,626 | 8 | 2 | > I love ~~creating~~ narratives and characters and ~~expressing~~ myself ~~through my writing~~, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then ~~phrasing~~ *imagining how I can use* them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning Fixed it for ya. You cannot create anything if you’re unwilling or unable to go through the motions of creation. If the tedium of writing is such that it keeps you from doing any actual writing, then you’re not really a writer, right? | It might be a sign that the type of writing you are currently trying to do is not for you, to be honest. Not in a judgemental way, just in a "is that an activity that inherently brings you joy?" way. Maybe there are different outlets that will suit you better, like making scenarios for table top RPGs, or maybe you just need to sporadically fill a notebook/online journal every couple of weeks with all your thoughts. | 1 | 10,332 | 4 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00niu0 | h014jno | 1,622,411,538 | 1,622,420,958 | 2 | 8 | I don't have ADHD, but I kinda understand. I love creating the structure of the story, planning character arcs and even thinking about the narrative's themes. But when it comes to actually writing all that I get stuck: everything stops working and I cant figure out how to fix it while being true to what I planned. I think it's a problem of perfeccionism: I have these great ideas, set high expectations and, naturally, I fail to meet them. The ideas feel perfect, but actually writing them reveals their flaws. So I don't know, maybe we should just lower our expectations and simply try to do our best. Get less attached to the ideas and concepts, to allow us to shape them into a finished narrative, even if it is flawed. | > I love ~~creating~~ narratives and characters and ~~expressing~~ myself ~~through my writing~~, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then ~~phrasing~~ *imagining how I can use* them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning Fixed it for ya. You cannot create anything if you’re unwilling or unable to go through the motions of creation. If the tedium of writing is such that it keeps you from doing any actual writing, then you’re not really a writer, right? | 0 | 9,420 | 4 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00nuiz | h014jno | 1,622,411,701 | 1,622,420,958 | 2 | 8 | I am slowly getting rid of my primary inhibitor: the thought that what I write is not good enough. "Just write" is indeed a good piece of advice. You can't revise it if you haven't written it. | > I love ~~creating~~ narratives and characters and ~~expressing~~ myself ~~through my writing~~, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then ~~phrasing~~ *imagining how I can use* them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning Fixed it for ya. You cannot create anything if you’re unwilling or unable to go through the motions of creation. If the tedium of writing is such that it keeps you from doing any actual writing, then you’re not really a writer, right? | 0 | 9,257 | 4 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00r7lp | h014jno | 1,622,413,466 | 1,622,420,958 | 2 | 8 | I’m still in the middle of swollowing the pill/solution to this problem. The solution is a mixture of understanding that writing success is mostly marketing…and I can’t wrap my head around the marketing part. | > I love ~~creating~~ narratives and characters and ~~expressing~~ myself ~~through my writing~~, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then ~~phrasing~~ *imagining how I can use* them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning Fixed it for ya. You cannot create anything if you’re unwilling or unable to go through the motions of creation. If the tedium of writing is such that it keeps you from doing any actual writing, then you’re not really a writer, right? | 0 | 7,492 | 4 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00smsn | h014jno | 1,622,414,240 | 1,622,420,958 | 2 | 8 | Well, that’s you and the rest of the world lmao. | > I love ~~creating~~ narratives and characters and ~~expressing~~ myself ~~through my writing~~, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then ~~phrasing~~ *imagining how I can use* them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning Fixed it for ya. You cannot create anything if you’re unwilling or unable to go through the motions of creation. If the tedium of writing is such that it keeps you from doing any actual writing, then you’re not really a writer, right? | 0 | 6,718 | 4 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h014jno | h00sy1k | 1,622,420,958 | 1,622,414,413 | 8 | 2 | > I love ~~creating~~ narratives and characters and ~~expressing~~ myself ~~through my writing~~, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then ~~phrasing~~ *imagining how I can use* them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning Fixed it for ya. You cannot create anything if you’re unwilling or unable to go through the motions of creation. If the tedium of writing is such that it keeps you from doing any actual writing, then you’re not really a writer, right? | Uhhmmm I’m pretty sure you just described half the “writers” here. | 1 | 6,545 | 4 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h007zbc | h00wukt | 1,622,403,616 | 1,622,416,603 | 3 | 4 | I feel this in my bones. | Dorothy Parker famously said “I hate writing; I love having written.” It can be a very painful process. And at the end of the day, it’s work. There are parts that are fun and parts that are a slog. | 0 | 12,987 | 1.333333 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00wukt | h00epxn | 1,622,416,603 | 1,622,407,031 | 4 | 3 | Dorothy Parker famously said “I hate writing; I love having written.” It can be a very painful process. And at the end of the day, it’s work. There are parts that are fun and parts that are a slog. | Break up your goal into manageable chunks that can be accomplished in short bursts. The pomodoro technique is a good method. Write for a 25 minute session and then stop. Do something else. Do another session that day if you want, or not. You could do shorter sessions, too, but do them frequently. | 1 | 9,572 | 1.333333 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00wukt | h00h361 | 1,622,416,603 | 1,622,408,240 | 4 | 3 | Dorothy Parker famously said “I hate writing; I love having written.” It can be a very painful process. And at the end of the day, it’s work. There are parts that are fun and parts that are a slog. | You don't say why you're looking at something substantial. Is substantial important to you, or is that something you feel you ought to do? When you say narrative, I'm assuming you're leaning to prose. but that doesn't mean you have to follow the David Foster Wallace route. If short glimpses matter more to you, perhaps you're a Wigleaf / Smokelong kind of writer. Here's the former's top 50 tiny proses of last year: https://wigleaf.com/2020top501.htm If 'substantial' is something you are interested in, though, there's no way to achieve that without a certain amount of pushing through what can be tedious and demotivating. I'm guessing from your ADHD reference you already have coping strategies for other tedious and demotivating things? You might be able to bring those in, but here's a couple I use: I find it very hard to put myself through tedious and demotivating things for my own sake, but I'll do them for other people who expect them; do you have a writers' group near you, or an online one to try? (Not like a subreddit; I need a group that meets up and says 'what did you produce this week?', to make sure I do produce something.) Trello. (I know that makes it sound like more work!) The poet Michael Donaghy used to have folders for his poems in progress called Safe, Safer and Safest - his final, posthumous collection is called Safest in memory of that. Those could have been trello columns. I've gotten more productive since I started using trello boards to keep track of my texts that are safe, that need work, that are on the verge of getting rid of. If I lose focus on one card, I can recognise and accept that, and drop in on another. but honestly, overall? there's going to be tedium, and that's okay. Don't wish it away. Having a background hum of tedium makes those brilliant moments of flow, where you're on fire and the story is pulsing and living in the heat of your work, better. | 1 | 8,363 | 1.333333 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00wukt | h00lqs1 | 1,622,416,603 | 1,622,410,626 | 4 | 2 | Dorothy Parker famously said “I hate writing; I love having written.” It can be a very painful process. And at the end of the day, it’s work. There are parts that are fun and parts that are a slog. | It might be a sign that the type of writing you are currently trying to do is not for you, to be honest. Not in a judgemental way, just in a "is that an activity that inherently brings you joy?" way. Maybe there are different outlets that will suit you better, like making scenarios for table top RPGs, or maybe you just need to sporadically fill a notebook/online journal every couple of weeks with all your thoughts. | 1 | 5,977 | 2 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00niu0 | h00wukt | 1,622,411,538 | 1,622,416,603 | 2 | 4 | I don't have ADHD, but I kinda understand. I love creating the structure of the story, planning character arcs and even thinking about the narrative's themes. But when it comes to actually writing all that I get stuck: everything stops working and I cant figure out how to fix it while being true to what I planned. I think it's a problem of perfeccionism: I have these great ideas, set high expectations and, naturally, I fail to meet them. The ideas feel perfect, but actually writing them reveals their flaws. So I don't know, maybe we should just lower our expectations and simply try to do our best. Get less attached to the ideas and concepts, to allow us to shape them into a finished narrative, even if it is flawed. | Dorothy Parker famously said “I hate writing; I love having written.” It can be a very painful process. And at the end of the day, it’s work. There are parts that are fun and parts that are a slog. | 0 | 5,065 | 2 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00wukt | h00nuiz | 1,622,416,603 | 1,622,411,701 | 4 | 2 | Dorothy Parker famously said “I hate writing; I love having written.” It can be a very painful process. And at the end of the day, it’s work. There are parts that are fun and parts that are a slog. | I am slowly getting rid of my primary inhibitor: the thought that what I write is not good enough. "Just write" is indeed a good piece of advice. You can't revise it if you haven't written it. | 1 | 4,902 | 2 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00r7lp | h00wukt | 1,622,413,466 | 1,622,416,603 | 2 | 4 | I’m still in the middle of swollowing the pill/solution to this problem. The solution is a mixture of understanding that writing success is mostly marketing…and I can’t wrap my head around the marketing part. | Dorothy Parker famously said “I hate writing; I love having written.” It can be a very painful process. And at the end of the day, it’s work. There are parts that are fun and parts that are a slog. | 0 | 3,137 | 2 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00wukt | h00smsn | 1,622,416,603 | 1,622,414,240 | 4 | 2 | Dorothy Parker famously said “I hate writing; I love having written.” It can be a very painful process. And at the end of the day, it’s work. There are parts that are fun and parts that are a slog. | Well, that’s you and the rest of the world lmao. | 1 | 2,363 | 2 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00wukt | h00sy1k | 1,622,416,603 | 1,622,414,413 | 4 | 2 | Dorothy Parker famously said “I hate writing; I love having written.” It can be a very painful process. And at the end of the day, it’s work. There are parts that are fun and parts that are a slog. | Uhhmmm I’m pretty sure you just described half the “writers” here. | 1 | 2,190 | 2 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h007zbc | h00op6r | 1,622,403,616 | 1,622,412,136 | 3 | 4 | I feel this in my bones. | that's true about pretty much everything, is it not? the idea of having achieved something and being successful is more exciting than having to actually do the work. | 0 | 8,520 | 1.333333 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00epxn | h00op6r | 1,622,407,031 | 1,622,412,136 | 3 | 4 | Break up your goal into manageable chunks that can be accomplished in short bursts. The pomodoro technique is a good method. Write for a 25 minute session and then stop. Do something else. Do another session that day if you want, or not. You could do shorter sessions, too, but do them frequently. | that's true about pretty much everything, is it not? the idea of having achieved something and being successful is more exciting than having to actually do the work. | 0 | 5,105 | 1.333333 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00h361 | h00op6r | 1,622,408,240 | 1,622,412,136 | 3 | 4 | You don't say why you're looking at something substantial. Is substantial important to you, or is that something you feel you ought to do? When you say narrative, I'm assuming you're leaning to prose. but that doesn't mean you have to follow the David Foster Wallace route. If short glimpses matter more to you, perhaps you're a Wigleaf / Smokelong kind of writer. Here's the former's top 50 tiny proses of last year: https://wigleaf.com/2020top501.htm If 'substantial' is something you are interested in, though, there's no way to achieve that without a certain amount of pushing through what can be tedious and demotivating. I'm guessing from your ADHD reference you already have coping strategies for other tedious and demotivating things? You might be able to bring those in, but here's a couple I use: I find it very hard to put myself through tedious and demotivating things for my own sake, but I'll do them for other people who expect them; do you have a writers' group near you, or an online one to try? (Not like a subreddit; I need a group that meets up and says 'what did you produce this week?', to make sure I do produce something.) Trello. (I know that makes it sound like more work!) The poet Michael Donaghy used to have folders for his poems in progress called Safe, Safer and Safest - his final, posthumous collection is called Safest in memory of that. Those could have been trello columns. I've gotten more productive since I started using trello boards to keep track of my texts that are safe, that need work, that are on the verge of getting rid of. If I lose focus on one card, I can recognise and accept that, and drop in on another. but honestly, overall? there's going to be tedium, and that's okay. Don't wish it away. Having a background hum of tedium makes those brilliant moments of flow, where you're on fire and the story is pulsing and living in the heat of your work, better. | that's true about pretty much everything, is it not? the idea of having achieved something and being successful is more exciting than having to actually do the work. | 0 | 3,896 | 1.333333 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00op6r | h00lqs1 | 1,622,412,136 | 1,622,410,626 | 4 | 2 | that's true about pretty much everything, is it not? the idea of having achieved something and being successful is more exciting than having to actually do the work. | It might be a sign that the type of writing you are currently trying to do is not for you, to be honest. Not in a judgemental way, just in a "is that an activity that inherently brings you joy?" way. Maybe there are different outlets that will suit you better, like making scenarios for table top RPGs, or maybe you just need to sporadically fill a notebook/online journal every couple of weeks with all your thoughts. | 1 | 1,510 | 2 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00niu0 | h00op6r | 1,622,411,538 | 1,622,412,136 | 2 | 4 | I don't have ADHD, but I kinda understand. I love creating the structure of the story, planning character arcs and even thinking about the narrative's themes. But when it comes to actually writing all that I get stuck: everything stops working and I cant figure out how to fix it while being true to what I planned. I think it's a problem of perfeccionism: I have these great ideas, set high expectations and, naturally, I fail to meet them. The ideas feel perfect, but actually writing them reveals their flaws. So I don't know, maybe we should just lower our expectations and simply try to do our best. Get less attached to the ideas and concepts, to allow us to shape them into a finished narrative, even if it is flawed. | that's true about pretty much everything, is it not? the idea of having achieved something and being successful is more exciting than having to actually do the work. | 0 | 598 | 2 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00nuiz | h00op6r | 1,622,411,701 | 1,622,412,136 | 2 | 4 | I am slowly getting rid of my primary inhibitor: the thought that what I write is not good enough. "Just write" is indeed a good piece of advice. You can't revise it if you haven't written it. | that's true about pretty much everything, is it not? the idea of having achieved something and being successful is more exciting than having to actually do the work. | 0 | 435 | 2 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h007zbc | h00rsb8 | 1,622,403,616 | 1,622,413,776 | 3 | 4 | I feel this in my bones. | There's a reason writing is a tough gig. The fact that it's hard is a reminder that it's worth doing. | 0 | 10,160 | 1.333333 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00rsb8 | h00epxn | 1,622,413,776 | 1,622,407,031 | 4 | 3 | There's a reason writing is a tough gig. The fact that it's hard is a reminder that it's worth doing. | Break up your goal into manageable chunks that can be accomplished in short bursts. The pomodoro technique is a good method. Write for a 25 minute session and then stop. Do something else. Do another session that day if you want, or not. You could do shorter sessions, too, but do them frequently. | 1 | 6,745 | 1.333333 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00h361 | h00rsb8 | 1,622,408,240 | 1,622,413,776 | 3 | 4 | You don't say why you're looking at something substantial. Is substantial important to you, or is that something you feel you ought to do? When you say narrative, I'm assuming you're leaning to prose. but that doesn't mean you have to follow the David Foster Wallace route. If short glimpses matter more to you, perhaps you're a Wigleaf / Smokelong kind of writer. Here's the former's top 50 tiny proses of last year: https://wigleaf.com/2020top501.htm If 'substantial' is something you are interested in, though, there's no way to achieve that without a certain amount of pushing through what can be tedious and demotivating. I'm guessing from your ADHD reference you already have coping strategies for other tedious and demotivating things? You might be able to bring those in, but here's a couple I use: I find it very hard to put myself through tedious and demotivating things for my own sake, but I'll do them for other people who expect them; do you have a writers' group near you, or an online one to try? (Not like a subreddit; I need a group that meets up and says 'what did you produce this week?', to make sure I do produce something.) Trello. (I know that makes it sound like more work!) The poet Michael Donaghy used to have folders for his poems in progress called Safe, Safer and Safest - his final, posthumous collection is called Safest in memory of that. Those could have been trello columns. I've gotten more productive since I started using trello boards to keep track of my texts that are safe, that need work, that are on the verge of getting rid of. If I lose focus on one card, I can recognise and accept that, and drop in on another. but honestly, overall? there's going to be tedium, and that's okay. Don't wish it away. Having a background hum of tedium makes those brilliant moments of flow, where you're on fire and the story is pulsing and living in the heat of your work, better. | There's a reason writing is a tough gig. The fact that it's hard is a reminder that it's worth doing. | 0 | 5,536 | 1.333333 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00rsb8 | h00lqs1 | 1,622,413,776 | 1,622,410,626 | 4 | 2 | There's a reason writing is a tough gig. The fact that it's hard is a reminder that it's worth doing. | It might be a sign that the type of writing you are currently trying to do is not for you, to be honest. Not in a judgemental way, just in a "is that an activity that inherently brings you joy?" way. Maybe there are different outlets that will suit you better, like making scenarios for table top RPGs, or maybe you just need to sporadically fill a notebook/online journal every couple of weeks with all your thoughts. | 1 | 3,150 | 2 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00rsb8 | h00niu0 | 1,622,413,776 | 1,622,411,538 | 4 | 2 | There's a reason writing is a tough gig. The fact that it's hard is a reminder that it's worth doing. | I don't have ADHD, but I kinda understand. I love creating the structure of the story, planning character arcs and even thinking about the narrative's themes. But when it comes to actually writing all that I get stuck: everything stops working and I cant figure out how to fix it while being true to what I planned. I think it's a problem of perfeccionism: I have these great ideas, set high expectations and, naturally, I fail to meet them. The ideas feel perfect, but actually writing them reveals their flaws. So I don't know, maybe we should just lower our expectations and simply try to do our best. Get less attached to the ideas and concepts, to allow us to shape them into a finished narrative, even if it is flawed. | 1 | 2,238 | 2 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00rsb8 | h00nuiz | 1,622,413,776 | 1,622,411,701 | 4 | 2 | There's a reason writing is a tough gig. The fact that it's hard is a reminder that it's worth doing. | I am slowly getting rid of my primary inhibitor: the thought that what I write is not good enough. "Just write" is indeed a good piece of advice. You can't revise it if you haven't written it. | 1 | 2,075 | 2 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00rsb8 | h00r7lp | 1,622,413,776 | 1,622,413,466 | 4 | 2 | There's a reason writing is a tough gig. The fact that it's hard is a reminder that it's worth doing. | I’m still in the middle of swollowing the pill/solution to this problem. The solution is a mixture of understanding that writing success is mostly marketing…and I can’t wrap my head around the marketing part. | 1 | 310 | 2 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h01h8ym | h016rkw | 1,622,428,277 | 1,622,422,229 | 4 | 3 | You dont have to be a writer. | Yes, it is extremely common. The truth is, writing is HARD. But there is a reason we do it. My advice: just write. eventually you will hit what I call "writers puberty" and will be able to attack bigger ideas and concepts with better writing and execution. It just takes practice. For now, try small ideas. Poetry and short stories. Or, if your like me, right three full fledged manuscripts before you get your "magnum opus" Good luck! | 1 | 6,048 | 1.333333 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h016rkw | h00lqs1 | 1,622,422,229 | 1,622,410,626 | 3 | 2 | Yes, it is extremely common. The truth is, writing is HARD. But there is a reason we do it. My advice: just write. eventually you will hit what I call "writers puberty" and will be able to attack bigger ideas and concepts with better writing and execution. It just takes practice. For now, try small ideas. Poetry and short stories. Or, if your like me, right three full fledged manuscripts before you get your "magnum opus" Good luck! | It might be a sign that the type of writing you are currently trying to do is not for you, to be honest. Not in a judgemental way, just in a "is that an activity that inherently brings you joy?" way. Maybe there are different outlets that will suit you better, like making scenarios for table top RPGs, or maybe you just need to sporadically fill a notebook/online journal every couple of weeks with all your thoughts. | 1 | 11,603 | 1.5 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00niu0 | h016rkw | 1,622,411,538 | 1,622,422,229 | 2 | 3 | I don't have ADHD, but I kinda understand. I love creating the structure of the story, planning character arcs and even thinking about the narrative's themes. But when it comes to actually writing all that I get stuck: everything stops working and I cant figure out how to fix it while being true to what I planned. I think it's a problem of perfeccionism: I have these great ideas, set high expectations and, naturally, I fail to meet them. The ideas feel perfect, but actually writing them reveals their flaws. So I don't know, maybe we should just lower our expectations and simply try to do our best. Get less attached to the ideas and concepts, to allow us to shape them into a finished narrative, even if it is flawed. | Yes, it is extremely common. The truth is, writing is HARD. But there is a reason we do it. My advice: just write. eventually you will hit what I call "writers puberty" and will be able to attack bigger ideas and concepts with better writing and execution. It just takes practice. For now, try small ideas. Poetry and short stories. Or, if your like me, right three full fledged manuscripts before you get your "magnum opus" Good luck! | 0 | 10,691 | 1.5 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h016rkw | h00nuiz | 1,622,422,229 | 1,622,411,701 | 3 | 2 | Yes, it is extremely common. The truth is, writing is HARD. But there is a reason we do it. My advice: just write. eventually you will hit what I call "writers puberty" and will be able to attack bigger ideas and concepts with better writing and execution. It just takes practice. For now, try small ideas. Poetry and short stories. Or, if your like me, right three full fledged manuscripts before you get your "magnum opus" Good luck! | I am slowly getting rid of my primary inhibitor: the thought that what I write is not good enough. "Just write" is indeed a good piece of advice. You can't revise it if you haven't written it. | 1 | 10,528 | 1.5 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h016rkw | h00r7lp | 1,622,422,229 | 1,622,413,466 | 3 | 2 | Yes, it is extremely common. The truth is, writing is HARD. But there is a reason we do it. My advice: just write. eventually you will hit what I call "writers puberty" and will be able to attack bigger ideas and concepts with better writing and execution. It just takes practice. For now, try small ideas. Poetry and short stories. Or, if your like me, right three full fledged manuscripts before you get your "magnum opus" Good luck! | I’m still in the middle of swollowing the pill/solution to this problem. The solution is a mixture of understanding that writing success is mostly marketing…and I can’t wrap my head around the marketing part. | 1 | 8,763 | 1.5 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00smsn | h016rkw | 1,622,414,240 | 1,622,422,229 | 2 | 3 | Well, that’s you and the rest of the world lmao. | Yes, it is extremely common. The truth is, writing is HARD. But there is a reason we do it. My advice: just write. eventually you will hit what I call "writers puberty" and will be able to attack bigger ideas and concepts with better writing and execution. It just takes practice. For now, try small ideas. Poetry and short stories. Or, if your like me, right three full fledged manuscripts before you get your "magnum opus" Good luck! | 0 | 7,989 | 1.5 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00sy1k | h016rkw | 1,622,414,413 | 1,622,422,229 | 2 | 3 | Uhhmmm I’m pretty sure you just described half the “writers” here. | Yes, it is extremely common. The truth is, writing is HARD. But there is a reason we do it. My advice: just write. eventually you will hit what I call "writers puberty" and will be able to attack bigger ideas and concepts with better writing and execution. It just takes practice. For now, try small ideas. Poetry and short stories. Or, if your like me, right three full fledged manuscripts before you get your "magnum opus" Good luck! | 0 | 7,816 | 1.5 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h007zbc | h01h8ym | 1,622,403,616 | 1,622,428,277 | 3 | 4 | I feel this in my bones. | You dont have to be a writer. | 0 | 24,661 | 1.333333 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00epxn | h01h8ym | 1,622,407,031 | 1,622,428,277 | 3 | 4 | Break up your goal into manageable chunks that can be accomplished in short bursts. The pomodoro technique is a good method. Write for a 25 minute session and then stop. Do something else. Do another session that day if you want, or not. You could do shorter sessions, too, but do them frequently. | You dont have to be a writer. | 0 | 21,246 | 1.333333 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h01h8ym | h00h361 | 1,622,428,277 | 1,622,408,240 | 4 | 3 | You dont have to be a writer. | You don't say why you're looking at something substantial. Is substantial important to you, or is that something you feel you ought to do? When you say narrative, I'm assuming you're leaning to prose. but that doesn't mean you have to follow the David Foster Wallace route. If short glimpses matter more to you, perhaps you're a Wigleaf / Smokelong kind of writer. Here's the former's top 50 tiny proses of last year: https://wigleaf.com/2020top501.htm If 'substantial' is something you are interested in, though, there's no way to achieve that without a certain amount of pushing through what can be tedious and demotivating. I'm guessing from your ADHD reference you already have coping strategies for other tedious and demotivating things? You might be able to bring those in, but here's a couple I use: I find it very hard to put myself through tedious and demotivating things for my own sake, but I'll do them for other people who expect them; do you have a writers' group near you, or an online one to try? (Not like a subreddit; I need a group that meets up and says 'what did you produce this week?', to make sure I do produce something.) Trello. (I know that makes it sound like more work!) The poet Michael Donaghy used to have folders for his poems in progress called Safe, Safer and Safest - his final, posthumous collection is called Safest in memory of that. Those could have been trello columns. I've gotten more productive since I started using trello boards to keep track of my texts that are safe, that need work, that are on the verge of getting rid of. If I lose focus on one card, I can recognise and accept that, and drop in on another. but honestly, overall? there's going to be tedium, and that's okay. Don't wish it away. Having a background hum of tedium makes those brilliant moments of flow, where you're on fire and the story is pulsing and living in the heat of your work, better. | 1 | 20,037 | 1.333333 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h01h8ym | h00lqs1 | 1,622,428,277 | 1,622,410,626 | 4 | 2 | You dont have to be a writer. | It might be a sign that the type of writing you are currently trying to do is not for you, to be honest. Not in a judgemental way, just in a "is that an activity that inherently brings you joy?" way. Maybe there are different outlets that will suit you better, like making scenarios for table top RPGs, or maybe you just need to sporadically fill a notebook/online journal every couple of weeks with all your thoughts. | 1 | 17,651 | 2 | ||
nogtl7 | writing_train | 0.97 | I’ve realised I’m far more excited by the idea of writing than the reality of it. I love creating narratives and characters and expressing myself through my writing, and mining my vocabulary for the perfect words and then phrasing them in the most ideal fashion to convey meaning........ in theory (or on paper if you’ll pardon a pun) However the reality of actually writing anything substantial is frequently tedious and demotivating. My ADHD certainly doesn’t help much either. I feel sort of like a moth to a flame. Anyhow I assume this is a fairly common situation. Any advice on how to overcome it? | h00niu0 | h01h8ym | 1,622,411,538 | 1,622,428,277 | 2 | 4 | I don't have ADHD, but I kinda understand. I love creating the structure of the story, planning character arcs and even thinking about the narrative's themes. But when it comes to actually writing all that I get stuck: everything stops working and I cant figure out how to fix it while being true to what I planned. I think it's a problem of perfeccionism: I have these great ideas, set high expectations and, naturally, I fail to meet them. The ideas feel perfect, but actually writing them reveals their flaws. So I don't know, maybe we should just lower our expectations and simply try to do our best. Get less attached to the ideas and concepts, to allow us to shape them into a finished narrative, even if it is flawed. | You dont have to be a writer. | 0 | 16,739 | 2 |
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