Do you write?

[Liam]

Pretty simple really - who on here writes? Poetry, short stories, novels, scripts...anything really.

 

It has been something I've tried to get more into - I completed Nanowrimo last year, but am finding it hard this year to sit down and consistently write, even when I feel like I have a decent idea. All it takes is to read a different book and I'm suddenly fancying doing something different.

[Fallacy!]

I've got about three scripts in that have been in various levels of development since college. One is just about done, but it needs an antagonist and an ending (which I guess means it's not even close to being done), the other two are choppy.

 

Since moving to Los Angeles a few years ago, I've tried to network and meet people who would know whose hands to get my scripts into, but I just haven't found the motivation to actually sit down and complete any of them yet.

[JustJay]

I used to write some poetry but for some reason I stopped. I have wrote a couple in the last few years but I used to write a lot. I had a blog and put some on there. Here is one of my favorites of mine http://musingsbyjaye.blogspot.com/2010/11/ballad-of-wartime-hero.html

[Chaos]

I always claim to be a writer, but I have not written anything substantive in quite some time. I want to get back into the habit in the next few weeks/months and write a couple of short stories/short screen-plays before moving into something much more long form.

 

My biggest obstacle in recent years is two parts: 1) the patience/persistence to work through something, 2) I have a writer's self-loathing down to a science. I can't write more than a paragraph or two without thinking something is garbage. I need to learn to let things play out as much as they can in my head and then go back and adjust as opposed to just hitting delete.

[Tabe]

I write technical documents and specifications. Does that count?

[odessasteps]

[JRGoldman]

I've had a couple plays produced and read, and a very small amount of poetry published. I always say I've been more successful than most, but not enough to ever say I'm a writer. I'm working on a novel right now. I'm having a lot of fun writing it, which is a different experience than I normally have. It's my first attempt to write prose. 

[supremebve]

I always claim to be a writer, but I have not written anything substantive in quite some time. I want to get back into the habit in the next few weeks/months and write a couple of short stories/short screen-plays before moving into something much more long form.

 

My biggest obstacle in recent years is two parts: 1) the patience/persistence to work through something, 2) I have a writer's self-loathing down to a science. I can't write more than a paragraph or two without thinking something is garbage. I need to learn to let things play out as much as they can in my head and then go back and adjust as opposed to just hitting delete.

The goal was to write professionally, but I don't know if it will ever happen at this point.  I do have a couple works in progress, that I go back to from time to time, but ultimately I write just to stay creative and keep my skill sharp.  I never seem to have the motivation/inspiration to write consistently, but when I get that feeling I can write for days.  The issue is that those days are few and far between.

[Greggulator]

I put down "writer" on W-2's and 1099s. I'm a journalist so it's a bit different than novels and the like. And the boring things I write about pay the bills. But it's usually pretty fun and silly and better than an actual job. I also write a lot of comedy and the like but am rarely paid for those ventures.

[Greggulator]

Tip on writing: Find a way to get some work writing for a deadline. Find your nearest local newspaper*. Like small-town weekly things. Tell them you want to write something. They'll send you to a boring meeting or event (anything from the local planning board to a kid's face-painting contest). You'll usually have a few days to put this together. But if you don't have it by next week, you won't get your article published and will blow that opportunity for good. And, if you're lucky, you won't get the $25 or whatever they offer.

You can substitute "local newspaper" with blogs or the like. But just find something where you have to meet the deadline or else you blow the opportunity.

But do that every week for a year and you'll learn really quickly how to discipline yourself to get something accomplished. I actually worked for small newspapers for five or six years. Writing 10-12 articles a week for $20K and iffy benefits really sucks at the time but I can churn out copy.

[Phil Schneider]

I had this published in Quartz and the Aspen Journal of Ideas

 

http://qz.com/317980/mtv-has-done-more-for-the-us-teen-birthrate-than-decades-of-policy/

[Critts]

I was blogging quite frequently for a while and because of that I was asked to contribute to a well known hockey blog. I just got busy with my regular job and just stopped for a while. I've been meaning to get back into it since I really enjoyed it. I know it's not a good excuse but I'm just mentally drained by the time I get home from my job that it sadly keeps me from writing more. Yes, it's a shitty excuse.

 

I really like Greggulator's tip. I will definitely have to try that.

[Jingus]

I always claim to be a writer, but I have not written anything substantive in quite some time. I want to get back into the habit in the next few weeks/months and write a couple of short stories/short screen-plays before moving into something much more long form.

 

My biggest obstacle in recent years is two parts: 1) the patience/persistence to work through something, 2) I have a writer's self-loathing down to a science. I can't write more than a paragraph or two without thinking something is garbage. I need to learn to let things play out as much as they can in my head and then go back and adjust as opposed to just hitting delete.

Pretty much same here. I'm still trying to work on a series of wacky stories about a barely-functional buddy comedy/lesbian romance/action misadventure/medieval fantasy parody/social satire about a naive young elf princess and a grumpy alcoholic vampire who end up repeatedly falling into various unbelievably ridiculous-but-deadly situations. And so far: a grand total of four short stories, only one of which is really completely finished, and it's taken me almost two years to write THAT much.

As some of you know, I used to write some pretty badass film criticism. But I finally got depressed and stopped doing movie reviews, "film critic" just isn't a viable professional career anymore.

[The Unholy Dragon]

I've been in like...a year or two funk where aside from some e-fedding my creative output has been minimal. One of those lofty dreams types. I have a ton of short stories and starts to novels and comic scripts and pitches floating about but I'm rubbish at finishing anything, probably because my issues with actually pretty severe depression cut the confidence in my work off at the knees.

Funny enough though, my fiancée and I just got funding to run a grassroots writing group for LGBT youth. So hopefully a side benefit will be firing up the creative engines again.

[BurningBeard]

I dooooooooooo.

 

I put alot of my dark stuff and short stories on http://www.handwrittenhysteria.co.uk

 

and I write about/test drive company cars as a day job at http://www.fleetpoint.org but this is mainly just editing press releases and uploading them onto WordPress

 

I set myself the goal of finishing a novel this year and I'm currently 27k words in with about another 13-15k planned out so I'm quite happy with myself. I've noticed that the common advice of just getting everything on the page and editing when it's done doesn't work for me and I have to edit as I go along - so it will be a rough/rushed draft of chapter which I then edit and expand on to class as a first draft if that makes sense. Probably gonna look to e-publish it next year once friends have given me their thoughts and I've hired someone to edit it.

 

Tip on writing: Find a way to get some work writing for a deadline.

But do that every week for a year and you'll learn really quickly how to discipline yourself to get something accomplished. I actually worked for small newspapers for five or six years. Writing 10-12 articles a week for $20K and iffy benefits really sucks at the time but I can churn out copy.

 

This is great advice btw. Freelance copywriting taught me exactly these points until spinning too many plates got tiresome

[davidb]

I do.  Aside from just fun stuff, I've done Nanowrimo twice and have another novel I'm working on now.

 

And discipline's my biggest problem.  I'll plan to write and then I spot something shiny and then it's time for bed.  

[offspring515]

I write poetry, have written a number of scripts, write comedy sketches. Nothing published or paid for. I mostly do it as a creative outlet.

[Cliff Hanger]

About 10-15 years ago, I wrote some poetry I was really proud of, stuff that probably doesn't merit publication but was by no means "bad." Much of it has been lost in a computer crash, but I still have a few. I wrote fairly regularly for a period of about 3 years, and less-frequently for another 2. Since that time, I keep insisting i'm going to go back to it, but never quite do. In the past year I've been doing 45-min writing prompts 2-3 times per week, but I've yet to write anything I would show anyone, or anything that could really be built on. It's just a way to pass time.

 

I used to have 3-4 stories that I was convinced were great ideas for novels, but it became very evident to me that I could write a good outline but couldn't fill in the blanks to make getting from point A to point B or make the characters feel like people. I have ideas for stories that might or might not be worth reading, but turning ideas worth writing about into stories worth reading is beyond my very limited ability.

[BurningBeard]

I used to have 3-4 stories that I was convinced were great ideas for novels, but it became very evident to me that I could write a good outline but couldn't fill in the blanks to make getting from point A to point B or make the characters feel like people. I have ideas for stories that might or might not be worth reading, but turning ideas worth writing about into stories worth reading is beyond my very limited ability.

 

Mate, that's legit the hardest part for me. I have a notebook filled with great ideas and outlines for stories but actually formulating them into an actual thing is real tough. I have noticed switching perspective from third person to first person has really helped me, I wouldn't have done an eighth of what I've written on my novel if I'd continued it in third person

[Jingus]

Heavily agreed on the above. I've never really understood those non-writers who inevitably ask "Where do you get your ideas?" Ideas are the easy part, man. Coming up with a few neat hooks for fiction is something that anyone can do. The real problem is doing the work of writing all that shit down. All too often, I'll have several different scenes or sequences in mind, along with a general outline of what's happening and where I'm going; but stringing those together with filler that doesn't look like filler is often damn near impossible.

I've really become down on my "talents" recently. I've been generally stressed and depressed about a lot of different shit recently, and it's just assassinating both my work ethic and my self-esteem when it comes to writing. I've been trying and trying to squeeze blood out of a stone with this one fantasy series I'm working on, and it's been SUCH a slow painful slog (one finished story and three fragments, over the course of almost two fuckin' years) that it's burning me right out of even wanting to be a writer. I feel like if I can't finish even some goofy tossed-off shit like this, then I've got no business ever attempting anything more ambitious. And the ambition is THERE (one of my dreamiest dream projects is doing my own modern version of Les Miserables, a vastly-scoped urban tragedy and general raging polemic against all the social injustices which our country perpetuates on a wide variety of oppressed people) but I can feel it gradually slipping away as my prose output is petering out.

[OSJ]

Well, I've been told that I have a knack for stringing words together in a compelling fashion... ;-) Yes, it's what I do for a living. God forbid I should have to work at a real job. Y'all are likely familiar with my horror/sf stuff and the tons of essays that have come about as a result. What you don't know, is that I cut my teeth writing ad copy, marketing materials, all that kind of boring shit that wasn't really in my job description, but it was a case of let idiots in NY that don't know the marketplace out west do it, or do it right... The bottom line is that I chose the road less traveled and worked my ass off to make it. The two greatest compliments that I've received are "John Pelan hasn't written very many stories, but he's never come close to writing a bad one." "It's hard to think of anyone else with as good a career based on such a small body of work." Of course, the latter completely overlooked the 3 million words of non fiction which you can bet your ass I got paid for and well paid for at that.;-)