if the vampire in my head says it, its the voice of reason

[balsamandash]

Do you ever read fic - especially elaborate AUs or really blantantly unrepentant tropey/fandom favorite plot fic - and just wonder how their brain did not just... Blare a pounding "you're an idiot" alarm at them until they stopped?

This sounds like an insult. It is not. I just want to know how to turn off the alarm. The only thing that seems to work is writing off prompts, but A) I don't have those kinds of prompts and B) I don't want to wait til i do to write a fucking thing.

Judging by my Ao3 I have not written nonprompt fic in two years. In don't think this is quite accurate but what isn't prompt fic, I think is solely written for the knowledge that one specific person wants it, which feels like the same thing.

I don't.know. I really don't. I'm just. Tired. And I.want to feel like I'm writing again. Even though I've written a fuck ton more this month than in ages, I still don't feel like I'm writing, somehow, and it.drives me up a wall.

Comments

[worlds_of_smoke]

maybe if you tell yourself that you don't have to to show it to anyone? I've found it's easier doing the tangle art I'm doing once I said that showing it to people is an option, rather than a requirement. It also helped my perfectionist weasels because, if I'm not showing what I do to anyone, nobody will know if I throw an attempt at a tangle away. (And hooboy, have I thrown tangles away. Apparently, I suck at making anything that's supposed to be nicely and uniformly curly or wavy. >.<)

[balsamandash]

It doesn't do very much? Well, it makes it really easy to fall down the black hole of "well, your writing isn't good enough for people anyway, which means it's not good at all, and you just shouldn't do it". In terms of helping, it's -- less whether it's good enough and more whether I'm allowed to waste my time on it at all, whether I show anyone or not.

So. Yeah. Brains. They are dumb. Thanks, though. <333 (And hey, sucking is how you eventually pave the way to not sucking, right? *cheers for you*)

[worlds_of_smoke]

Yeah, I can see how it could be counterproductive. :/ The other option would be to shift your mindset and say "I am not a writer. That is not a goal of mine. I just like putting words on paper", but I knoooooooooooooooooow that's not freaking possible for you. Might as well tell the sun to rise in the east.

(Same thing applies to you, you know.)

[balsamandash]

Yeah. I'm working on it, and my brain is racing on things that aren't prompt fic right now, so hopefully something will actually manage to come out now that inventory is done with. :|

(It's easier to remember it applies to other people? ... I'm working on it. I've been working on it for a long time, but. I'm trying.)

[worlds_of_smoke]

Let's hope. ♥ Good luck.

(Yeah, it is. And it may be something you always work on -- sometimes those "I am shit" messages go so, so deep that it's damn near impossible to completely disintegrate them. But you get better at doing things in spite of them.)

[silveradept]

Are there any prompts you want to give yourself that you haven't done yet?

[balsamandash]

.... I may be stupid on lack of sleep right now, but I'm not sure I entirely get what you're saying but. So far as things I want to make myself do, I'm... bad at remembering them? Or if not, I'm bad at telling myself I can actually spend the time on writing them.

[silveradept]

Oh, okay. Maybe the equivalent of a prompt hat, where all ideas go and that you do one out of, mixed thoroughly so you don't know which is which?

[shipwreck_light]

A lot of what I write is barely to prompt.

"Contes Barbares?" On scene with a snake out of 14,000 words.

Just because a fic used a prompt does not make it any more or any less. It makes it a fic that has a prompt somewhere in its history. I guess that's better than rage? And I say that as a rageohol powered writer.

That said, I tend to use vodka.

[balsamandash]

I do the same thing in a lot of ways -- my prompt fic tends to wander pretty off from the prompts, but it still.... is a thing. I don't even know. Words are weird, but it's a thing.

I can't say I've ever used rage, but I don't angry much. Or drink... ever. Hell, maybe I should try that one. XD