posted
I am not a writer. This is largely because I've never written much that wasn't required for school or my job. In fact, I'd say I don't have a very good outlet for my creative impulses right now. I don't dedicate much time to my guitar, certainly not enough to get any good at playing it; my camera is broken and I don't have the money to fix it or the time to use it if I did; I have had even less time to devote to any aspect of theater. The most creative things I do are work on my website and post here.
But I want to be a writer. I want to write. I have characters and stories in my head that I desperately need to get out, but I can never seem to make it work. Last night I lay in my bed unable to sleep for hours because I couldn't stop thinking about two stories I've been working on for the past year or so. One has a beginning, but I don't know how it ends. The other has an end, but no beginning. I can't seem to stop thinking about these stories, but I also can't seem to get them on paper. They're good stories, I know it, I can feel it, but I'm not a good enough writer to make them work anywhere but in my thoughts. And for the life of me I can't figure out how to complete either story.
I'm not sure why I'm telling you this. I'm not really asking for help; I'm not sure what help there is to give. But it's on my mind and I can't stop thinking about it, and sometimes it just helps to tell someone, if only to get my thoughts in order.
Posts: 4534 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
You need to meet Aaron Sorkin. He is a man with too many words and not enough stories. Y'all would get along great. Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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Kat's right. Actually, Hatrack is really BAD for me if I'm in a writing mode. It fosters in me writers ADD. I make a quick little post here and there, I don't have to concentrate on anything I don't want to or discipline my mind to really articulate anything that doesn't come instantaneously naturally. If I begin a post and it's not flowing, I just exit out and go to the next thread.
Scott R. keeps quoting, "It's suppose to be hard. Otherwise everyone would be doing it." So, just go write it. Sweat blood. When it ends up being bad (and it will be, since it's the first), feel good that you got it out on paper and then rewrite it. You'll know what your writing strengths and weaknesses are after the first draft, and you can concentrate on telling the story as opposed to solidifying the idea in your mind.
Get off Hatrack and write it. Posts: 7600 | Registered: Jan 2001
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quote:Seems these two problems should work eachother out quite nicely...
Part of what kept me up last night was trying to think of how to combine the two. After all, Uncle Orson is always saying that's how he writes his best stuff. But I just couldn't think of how to do it.
Posts: 4534 | Registered: Jan 2003
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quote:One has a beginning, but I don't know how it ends. The other has an end, but no beginning
Finding the beginning or ending to a story as you go is very nearly 100% of the fun! (And that's good news!)
I second katharina - go write it down. I've found it helps me to have a specific time every day that I sit down and write - things come much easier when they know they've got time to do so.
posted
I wrote about fifteen pages of the one with a beginning about a year ago, but I later realized that I would have to start all over again because I was telling the wrong story. The opener will remain the same, though. I have some scattered scenes from the one with an end, and I finally figured out a draft of the closing line, but I don't know what the rest of the story is.
Posts: 4534 | Registered: Jan 2003
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Have you written them down yet? You have a computer - you're posting. Surely you have at least notepad.
Posting on Hatrack, while raised to an occasional incredible level, does not count as an accomplishment. Your stories do. Write them.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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saka: Or you could do what I do and tamp the stories and characters back down into your head and hope that they emerge stronger and more insistent instead of fading away.
But you think you have problems.
I'm haunted by stories that don't yet exist, but that were/are/aren't yet written by authors who are dead.
NOTE: I'm calling saxon 'saka' from now on because that's the original root name.
Posts: 3423 | Registered: Aug 2001
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If I know the ending of the story but little else I usually try to focus on how each character gotm there, or didn't get there. Generally after two or three characters I have some idea what the rest of the story is, or at least what a more of the story is. I don't know if this will work for you, but I thaught I would suggest it just incase.
Posts: 2332 | Registered: Jul 2003
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quote:NOTE: I'm calling saxon 'saka' from now on because that's the original root name.
The original root name of what?
quote:Write them down. Now.
Have you written them down yet? You have a computer - you're posting. Surely you have at least notepad.
Unfortunately it's not very feasible for me to just write them down. I have enough time to post from work, my average post taking one minute or less to compose. But I think my boss would frown on me taking the time to write out two novels on his dime.
Posts: 4534 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
Nope. Each post takes less than a minute to write, but then there's the reading, the posting multiple times, the refreshing, the following of links.
I'll bet Hatrack takes a lot more time than you think, and I'll also bet a word document is easier to just set aside and add a paragraph at a time.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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However, saxon must also keep tabs on Slash's play-by-email RPG, which invovles a fair bit of reading and writing.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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My first drafts are usually so awful that I can't stand looking at them. But I can't write a second draft until I write the first. So you got to write it down.
It sounds like you have a problem with the little editor in your head. He knows what the story should be like, and he knows what you write ain't it. So he screams at you for being a jerk and not getting it right.
As Ralphie said, expect it to be bad the first time you write it. Tell your editor that it is supposed to be bad the first time. Then fix it on the rewrites.
A good idea is to put it aside for a few weeks or months before trying to rewrite it. Then you have distanced yourself from the work, and ways to improve it become much more obvious.
It's tough to write crap, but sometimes that's what you have to do. And it's a whole lot better than losing sleep! If your heart is screaming that loud to get the story out, you'd better just do it.
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I must have about... 6 or 7 stories I'm going through this same thing with. In fact, I am working on one right now. *leaves*
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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I have yet to take the step from Bad Writer to Writer...
I think saxon-san should have known that he'd get yelled at in this thread. ^-^ Write it down!! Then send it to me!!! I promise I'll try to be nice about it. Posts: 4816 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I don't know if it's true, but I have read that the Saxons are descended from the Scythians. Somewhere along the long they were known as the Saka or Sakai. This designation wasn't entirely 'racial' as I understand it, but was extended to a variety of tribes from the same area. ------
Also: I find that vigrous walks help my writing. I walk and let my mind ferment and sort itself out and then if I sit down right away when I get back, I tend to do better because I'm bubbling with ideas and have already written stuff in my head. If I merely sit and stare at a computer screen, I tend to freeze up.
Posts: 3423 | Registered: Aug 2001
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I mean, it just seems like a slow week. Maybe everyone is busy with vacation? Probably partly a reaction from all the gay marriage threads.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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My internet access at work has been spotty because of the fallout from the big power outage and the onslaught of virii...
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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quote: I have characters and stories in my head that I desperately need to get out, but I can never seem to make it work.
Congratulations, kid. You are officially a writer.
To other people, being a writer may mean that you must be produced, or paid, but to me it means to be tortured by that which you wish to write or are writing.
I will only foritfy what others here are saying, now that you have an idea of what you want to write, write, write, write, write.
I'm kind of lousy at this, because I only like to write when I feel 1000% super duper on what I'm writing. (which leads to many stuck points)
I do keep writing though...almost everyday.
I'm BIG BIG BIG on notes and working out everything in my head. I take notes whenever and where-ever I think I might have something that's even 50% good.
I constantly think of my characters, their voice, their thoughts and how they would act in the situations that are going to arise.
And then when my notes and my visualized characters and scenes are ready-ready-ready I hit the SCRIPT and write it out.
Don't worry about not knowing how it ends.
This is not a problem. It's almost best to be a part of the story, instead of above it. So that when you hit the middle of the 2nd act or so, you start to visualize how it will all turn out.
So WRITE.
<T>
NOTE: Hatrack is the ultimate "I should be writing but I'm here at Hatrack posting about how homosexual's should be allowed to ride at the front of the bus while dressed in drag." anti-writing device.
Posts: 2752 | Registered: Feb 2001
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quote: NOTE: Hatrack is the ultimate "I should be writing but I'm here at Hatrack posting about how homosexual's should be allowed to ride at the front of the bus while dressed in drag." anti-writing device.
Your right, the homosexuals in drag should be allowed at the front of the bus as long they promise to start writing their stories down once they get home.
I'm going to be gone for a week starting tomorrow anyway. Maybe all will be okay by the time I get back?
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