State of the Writer, November 2018 + a quick signal boost · 1:19pm Nov 28th, 2018
Look, I've got nothing positive going on on the writing front, and drawing this out until actually the end of the month is making me anxious. :|
First, the news! Fimfic user Muggony has started a story called The Divine Epidemic, which stars a whole bunch of ponies from the OC SlamJam! What a blast from the past, right? :D His character OddLuck is the star, and my character Loosestrife shows up early on. It's going to be long, so I dunno when I'll get to read it, but there you go, fair warning!
Moaning and griping below the cut. :B
For those who don't remember the Slamjam, the idea was a head-to-head competition of who could create and write OCs better. If you're looking for specifics or need a refresher, you can find more info here, here and here.
My character Loosestrife was an attempt to do something outrageous and original. She was a general of Chancellor Puddinghead's earth pony forces, back before the first Hearth's Warming, a fighter and a brilliant military strategist. She ran afoul of Star Swirl the Bearded during a skirmish, and was flung over a thousand years into the future as the mage decided to test out one of his new spells. Now, she's trying to find a life in modern Equestria, when being good with a sword or knowing how to plan a military victory are not exactly skills a pony needs.
And this was great, except that Falcata existed. >.> She was another OC from a thousand years ago who, I think, ended up in modern Equestria via cockatrice petrification. Point is, she was basically the same character, and I have no idea how that happened. D: So that was strike one.
Strike two is Shadow Play. Now we've got six characters from Equestria's distant past hanging around in the present, Star Swirl included. And I could actually use that -- I've always said dealing with the fallout of that episode would require an entire epic adventure story, and Loosestrife's climactic confrontation with Star Swirl in the modern time would be perfect for one -- except for strike three...
Tempest Shadow. At the way I write her, as a disaffected badass trying to fit in with a society where badasses are not really necessary, she's got the exact same character as Loosestrife, just without the already cliched backstory. And so I'm left with a character who is redundant in every way. :/
I realized this this morning, when a scene popped into my head of Loosestrife at some kind of port, I guess it would have to be, running into a pony working there named Free Duty. She gives her a card after discovering Loosestrife's identity and says something like, "Nopony names their kid 'Free Duty'--" and then her voice changes, gets deeper, takes on an accent "--not when she truly be Free Booty." So Loosestrife makes a 600 year old pirate friend. :B But given what I just said about her, I don't think I'll ever actually write any stories about Loosestrife, and that makes me kinda sad. :(
Not that I can write anything anyway. -.- Hey, remember the title of this blog? Yeah, I have not done any writing this month. Partially, this is because Starlight Fixes Everything has moved into season 8, and I'm not interested. Partially, this is also untrue, because I started writing something called "There Are Griffons Starving in Griffonstone", but I couldn't get more than a few sentences in before I just quit. :(
I really, really, really want to write. I think me not writing is why I've been kind of disaffected and mopey lately, why I go to bed every night feeling like a complete failure. But I just can't. It's not happening. I think about all the stories I've started and not finished, and just feel worse because there's nothing I can do. :(
And chances are, I'm not going to have much more writing time in the near future. Next month, my insurance switches over to a new provider, and I'm going to get the mental help I've needed for so long. After that, it's job time, and once I get a job, that's pretty much it. My ability to participate in frivolous things on the internet doesn't go to zero, per se, but my Youtube channel will go away and I will have to carefully consider whatever slivers of free time I have as 'writing time' or 'reading time', not both.
I really hate living in this society, because I just don't fit into it. :(
*humongous sympathy squeezes*
You know how to reach me if'n you wanna vent or chat, but yeah, I get the 'can't write' bit. Much love, sirrah.
Would it help if we threw random (pony or otherwise) writing prompts at you? Sometimes I can get out of a writing funk by penning a few hundred throwaway words.
4973941
I dunno. Probably not. :(
Hey, at least being able to get mental health help with a new provider is a big silver lining! Maybe that's the sort of thing that will help with the rest.
There's a pony minific Writeoff in another … two weeks I think? Maybe you could just use it as a writing prompt with a deadline and then ignore the workshopping part to keep your free time free. (It's not like you haven't earned the ability by now to submit a story or three free of review obligations.) And yeah, agreed with 4973941, the hardest part is getting from zero words to non-zero words, so even if you write garbage the act of just pushing words out is helpful in itself.
Hope you get the mental health help you need to thrive! And if you feel uninspired to write, you could always write a collab with me. ;)
Thanks for telling people that my thing exist! (The chapter that is published is moreso a piece I broke off of chapter one to cater as an introduction to the story. Loosestrife should show up sometime by next week.)
And I feel you. Coming up with writing ideas and finding inspiration for said ideas is hard. I have until December 7th to enter a short film festival being hosted by my local theater and the only thing preventing me from doing so is writing the script. I want to run on a good idea!
All the TV people make it look so easy. :(
Right there with you, buddy.
All of those scenarios you mentioned sound intriguing and fun. They sound like something I'd really like to read. Indiana Jones and Nathan Drake are effectively the same character, but I love them both, so Loosestrife/Tempest... there's room enough for the two of them. But you're looking at all those great ideas through the lens of depression. A pretty bad case, if my own experience is anything to go by. So, hurrah for your new insurance; take full advantage of it!
i66.tinypic.com/kcmo7c.jpg
Ditto. We should start a club or something.
I blame Ohio, but suspect it is more than that.
I wanted to add a reassuring and approving, yet relatively emotionless nod emoji here, but I couldn’t find one.
As a wise philosopher once said, then start your own... with hookers and blackjack. 😉
I’m glad you’re getting some help on the insurance front, but it sucks that you’re gonna lose time to do horse things.
Feel free to spray words about ideas at me via email and I can respond to them as if we both knew what we were doing with this socialization stuff.
4974012
Hyperbole and a half is soooo good.
I hope the new provider helps. I'll second Horizon's suggestion for the Writeoff as an option to do not-nothing on the writing front, with a known cap on how much time it could take anyway. But I get you on the limited time problem.
4974119
Is it still going? I think I stopped checking years ago after it hadn't updated for a year or two.
4974229
Besides occasionally showing people the Alot, my last interaction with H&aH was reading the book at a friend’s house.
4974249
Oh man, the book was great. :D
4974332 The book was so good. The goose adventure, man...
"I really hate living in this society, because I just don't fit into it. :(" As the last line in my poem says, "For this is my street, but it isn't my world."
For all of that PP, you add substantively to the world I do live in. And I thank you for it.
Man, I remember The Slamjam. I managed to get to the second round before I got voted out. I'll be sure to check out "The Divine Epidemic"; I liked a lot of the characters in that contest.