Https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/727841287119814656/ehh-generally-they-were-like-ask-specifics-about

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/727841287119814656/ehh-generally-they-were-like-ask-specifics-about Can you expand on writer’s block not being real?

Sure!

I think everyone who's ever made art has hit points where it's hard to go on making art or where a particular project isn't moving. So from that perspective, sure, a version of it is real...

But there's a particular version of it that's what a lot of people mean where you're A Writer™ and then the magic inspiration gnomes come and steal your inspiration juice. This is mostly nonsense, and quite a few author types who've actually finished long projects will tell you so.

When you sit down to a blank page and it stubbornly stays blank like your head, that's a symptom of something... and the something in question is often either depression and overwhelmed feelings that are taking over your whole life or an entirely correct instinct that your project is flawed and the next step is not writing that next scene.

Many people try to be pantsers instead of planners, get maybe a quarter into a project, and then choke. It's because they started with the kind of concept that requires planning, but they haven't planned. If your plot revolves around the characters eventually learning the meaning of life, you'd damn well better start with what you, the author, think that meaning is and work backwards. Same if your characters are solving a twisty mystery or complicated thriller conspiracy: you will not come up with a genius idea that ties everything together just by writing by the seat of your pants. If you don't go in with the ending in mind and some waypoints to write towards, you're going to choke. This is exceptionally common in grandiose fic concepts that are like "What if this true blue hero were a viiiiillain, oooooh!" where it's neat, but 99% of the point is showing us the work of getting from A to B. People write the prologue showing us the big concept and then flash back to how it all started... and then stop.

I see it a lot in projects that start with a character sheet for RP. Yeah, for RP itself, noodling along and figuring out what X would do in situation Y is great fun... but for many longfic/novel plot types, you will not arrive at a workable plot this way. You'll end up with a mess that can, at best, be used as brainstorming and completely rewritten from the ground up, using only key cool images or character observations. There are authors that start from individual characters and then see where they go. In my experience, they don't tend to be working in the genres that fic fandom types tend to want to work in. It's also something that often takes a lot more experience and skill than starting with a basic plot outline, and inexperienced writers often overreach.

It's not writer's block. It's a project that needs to be taken out back like Old Yeller.

Even the salvageable projects that are making you pause usually have some other issue like you not being clear on the central emotional themes even if you've outlined some factual plot. Or you've demanded that your characters do a particular thing for plot convenience, but you know deep down that it doesn't ring true. You can't write the next scene because there is no next scene. You need to rework the forced part till the rest can make sense.

And even more common than any of the above is people thinking that just because Danielle Steel sits down every morning and writes for eight hours, that means they can and should with no warm up or experience. Trying to force yourself to be a type of writer you're not—majorly overdoing it on any work, in fact—just leads to burnout and inability to function.

Tags

writing advice

TUMBLR SEXYREMATCH POLL MASTERPOST

I'll update this as the rounds progress.

ROUND ONE:

Lewis Pepper (Mystery Skulls Animated) vs. Professor Venomous (OK KO) WINNER: LEWIS

Guzma (Pokémon) vs. Bill Cipher (Gravity Falls) WINNER: BILL

The Warden (Superjail) vs. Almond Cookie (Cookie Run) WINNER: ALMOND COOKIE

The Once-ler (The Lorax (2012)) vs. Megamind (Megamind) WINNER: MEGAMIND

Sans (Undertale) vs. Junkrat (Overwatch) WINNER: SANS

Tony the Talking Clock (Don't Hug Me I'm Scared) vs. Black Hat (Villainous) WINNER: TONY

King Dice (Cuphead) vs. Raymond (Animal Crossing) WINNER: RAYMOND

Wheatley (Portal 2) vs. Doc Ock (Marvel) WINNER: WHEATLEY

Nagito Komaeda (Danganronpa) vs. Dr. Habit (Smile for Me) WINNER: KOMAEDA

Cecil Gershwin Palmer (Welcome to Night Vale) vs. Slenderman (???) WINNER: CECIL

Jack Skellington (the Nightmare Before Christmas) vs. Turbo (Wreck-It Ralph) WINNER: JACK

Ingo (Pokémon) vs. Bruno Madrigal (Encanto) WINNER: INGO

Purple Guy/William Afton (Five Nights at Freddy's) vs. Spamton (Deltarune) WINNER: SPAMTON

Alastor (Hazbin Hotel) vs. Loki (Marvel) WINNER: LOKI

Arataka Reigen (Mob Psycho 100) vs. Beetlejuice (Beetlejuice (all versions)) WINNER: REIGEN

Herobrine (Minecraft) vs. Benr(e)y (Half Life VR but the AI is Self-Aware) WINNER: HEROBRINE

ROUND TWO:

NOTE: Starting round 2, I'm ditching the bracket and opting for randomized matchups. The left side will stay on the left and the right will stay on the right, but otherwise it'll be shuffled.

Wheatley (Portal 2) vs. Lewis Pepper (Mystery Skulls Animated) WINNER: WHEATLEY

Bill Cipher (Gravity Falls) vs. Raymond (Animal Crossing) WINNER: BILL

Tony the Talking Clock (Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared) vs. Almond Cookie (Cookie Run) WINNER: TONY

Sans (Undertale) vs. Megamind (Megamind) WINNER: SANS

Loki (Marvel) vs. Nagito Komaeda (Danganronpa) WINNER: KOMAEDA

Cecil Gershwin Palmer (Welcome to Night Vale) vs. Herobrine (Minecraft) WINNER: CECIL

Ingo (Pokémon) vs. Jack Skellington (the Nightmare Before Christmas) WINNER: JACK

Arataka Reigen (Mob Psycho 100) vs. Spamton (Deltarune) WINNER: REIGEN

REVIVAL ROUND: The Once-ler (The Lorax (2012)) vs. King Dice (Cuphead) WINNER: THE ONCE-LER

ROUND THREE:

Tony the Talking Clock (Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared) vs. The Once-ler (The Lorax (2012)) vs. Wheatley (Portal 2) WINNER: THE ONCE-LER

Sans (Undertale) vs. Bill Cipher (Gravity Falls) WINNER: SANS

Cecil Gershwin Palmer (Welcome to Night Vale) vs. Nagito Komaeda (Danganronpa) WINNER: CECIL

Arataka Reigen (Mob Psycho 100) vs. Jack Skellington (The Nightmare Before Christmas) WINNER: REIGEN

ROUND FOUR:

Sans (Undertale) vs. The Once-ler (The Lorax (2012))

Arataka Reigen (Mob Psycho 100) vs. Cecil Gershwin Palmer (Welcome to Night Vale)

Tags

masterpost tumblr sexymen

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w-1-n-t-3-r

1 year ago

You have no imagine how many time I loop the song

☆ - ̗̀✨ He's just Ken ✨ ̖́- ☆

Tags

barbie barbie movie ken ryan gosling barbie 2023 the barbie movie barbie ken ANYWHERE ELSE... HE'D BE A TEN...

128K notes View Post

w-1-n-t-3-r

1 year ago

DO NOT GO TO AO3 RIGHT NOW!!

I really mean it. Apparently Anonymous Sudan is getting desperate because this isn't the out come they're hoping for and are trying to do a DNS attack! Which means they will try and redirect you to a malicious website to obtain private information!!!! SO DO NOT GO ONTO AO3 AT ALL FOR YOUR SAFETY!!!!!!!! FOR YOUR SAFTEY DELETE ALL AO3 TABS NOW!

Tags

ao3 spread the word ao3 down wishing well wishes to ao3

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w-1-n-t-3-r

1 year ago

I can just imagine the shipping discourse

Tags

fic may death never stop you

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w-1-n-t-3-r

2 years ago

Well, the up part is correct but the not crying part... well...

me today honestly

Tags

today

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w-1-n-t-3-r

3 years ago

I don't even know that drones could stuff like that.

Day of the Dead drones in Mexico City 💀.

Tags

cool day of the dead culture mexico drones

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w-1-n-t-3-r

3 years ago

I'm with 049 in this...

the fck's happening

Viet ver:

I apologize if there are any mistake, it's my first time translating uhh.

Tags

scp foundation scp 049 scp 035 dr jack bright 049 & 035 is getting married with Dr Bright officiating it is he allowed to do that

622 notes View Post

w-1-n-t-3-r

1 year ago

When I was a teenager and still on Neopets I was part of a pretty big Star Trek guild and eventually became part of its council, with the solemn duty of creating weekly polls. Well one day I created the poll "Which would win in a fight? Borg Cube or Death Star?". Naturally, since this was a Star Trek guild, the answer was overwhelmingly "Borg Cube", but someone did have the rationality to point out we were biased.

So I look up a pretty prominent Star Wars guild and message one of their council and ask them to poll the same question and get back to me in a week. They do, and naturally the fuckin geeks said "Death Star".

So then I look up a Stargate guild and messaged the lead council member, saying the same thing, and they get back to me almost immediately saying that the Death Star would immediately one-shot a Borg Cube but they would never be able to do it again to another Cube. And I took that wisdom back to my guild and we were mollified, and for one moment the Nerd World was peaceful.

Tags

star wars star trek star gate

137K notes View Post

w-1-n-t-3-r

1 year ago

Spreading the word because the original post is gone now (screenshots from a post I saw earlier today):

TLDR: ao3 is currently under attack, and you need to stay off the site to give the volunteers a chance to fix things

reblog this as much as you can!!

EDIT:

So it seems that there’s no reason to believe the reasoning behind the attacks coming from the group attacking ao3. I’ve seen countless other sources saying that they’ve lied during other attacks and this is no different

another update: the ao3 social media accounts have started to say that if it’s up for you, you can use it. If it’s not working for you though, you probably should stop reloading your page over and over again. That’s still going to overload their system

SECOND EDIT:

looks like ao3 has just been entirely shut down for now (9:02 pm PST)

Tags

signal boost ao3 spread the word ao3 down wishing well wishes to ao3

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w-1-n-t-3-r

2 years ago

Jazz goes to study psychology at Gotham U because, despite everything, they do have a world-renowned psychology course.

At some point (in a sociology or ethics class, maybe?), she has to write an essay on discrimination or cross-cultural conflicts or something.

And in a moment of assignment overload-induced exhaustion, she decides to write about the Anti-Ecto Acts.

Her essay raises all kinds of red flags -- with a staff members who reads it, or with an automated system that picks up several very concerning keywords, or both.

And so her essay makes its way into the possession of a certain group of vigilantes.

That's how Batman discovers the Acts, and the Fentons, and Phantom, and the whole entire mess that is Amity Park.

He is not happy.

Tags

danny phantom danny phantom x batman

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