Writing Woes - Blog Posts

why is it that I have a document for random scenes that appear at some point, and the first one is a character having a crisis over a dead person? to be fair, they watched the person die, and then have to tell that person’s family about their death, but why is that the first scene in the document?

Shit I’ve looked up for writing purposes

-Coronations and how they work

-How much do famous actors make?

-What an adversary is

-What regalia are

-Meteor hammers

-Armor for meteor hammers

-Chromium, and can it be used for armor

-The International Phonetic Alphabet

-Where is chromium found?

-Two-handed swords

-Different types of daggers

-Plants with symbolism

-How to write emotional turmoil

-How to write mental breakdowns

-Survivor’s guilt

-The definition of emotional manipulation

-The definition of gaslighting

-The concept of wuxing and the character traits associated with each element

-Character traits associated with each zodiac in Asian mythology

-Monkey’s paw

-Real-life locations

-Money conversions 

-Possible ways for people to act when drunk

-Blade lengths for different weapons

-How to make ship names

I can’t be the only one who does this

okay, so. I have my main wip, but it’s barely my main any more because of an AU I created of my own work.

I also make headcannons of the characters, forgetting I’m the creator.

Having multiple wips be like:

Morning: Oh, that’s a good idea for wip 1!

midday: wait, I should work on wip 2’s plot, I have ideas

afternoon: *thinking about random scenarios for wip 3*

evening: What wip is this for again? Meh, I’ll figure it out

That feeling when you research/write a lot about something that’s only going to be mentioned for a sentence for so

When in doubt, stay away from the main story and think about what those other random OCs of yours can do, accidentally make an entire story for them, want to write it into its own book/series, and finally realize there’s no plot. The only reason you haven’t done anything else with them is because you don’t want to get rid of them. Writer issues.

When I say I’m writing what I really mean is I’m thinking about the prologue and second half of the plot in extreme detail before considering the idea of what happens in the beginning, coincidentally making it so I get nothing done.

When the normal brain says sleep but the neurodivergent brain says “okay, but…” and proceeds to give a fuck ton of ideas to fill in p(l)otholes in the book

they work half the time. It would also be useful if I could remember them. And which story they belong to out of the three I haven’t abandoned yet

Person I’m talking about my writing to: That’s so cool! Can I see it?

Me: the thing is…. It’s spread over ten documents that I haven’t touched in like, six months and I’ve been super focused on making the magic system work so some characters aren’t complete gods because of lucky family lineage.

Person: …

Me: And I haven’t actually started writing the plot.

Why…

I can imagine what I want to write and how I want it to go, but words simply cannot be manifested onto the page.

so I’m left with the dreaded blinking cursor. A line that stares at me without mercy, mocking me, taunting me, temping me to write when it knows I can’t.

“Start writing”

Hah, no.

“Why not?”

I will, absolutely will against my will, revise and edit as I write, so I write the total of multiple chapters but it ends up being only one and half chapters. I fucking hate it

Writing

Is really difficult. Give yourself a break every once in a while. I’ve been on break from starting writing my main wip for over a year, and I still procrastinate the hell out of it. Writing takes time. Let it happen on its own

It would be wayyyyyy too awkward to explain that yes, I wrote two gay men that go through extreme trauma together, but no, they aren’t official until the last third or so of the story (and all the little lore bits that I have to tell otherwise it would make sense).

reblog if you're a writer but would rather drink straight cyanide than show any of your family members your work

An Average Night

Me, casually trying to sleep:

My brain: Heyyyyyyyyy

Me: Shut. The fuck. Up

Brain: Is the way [character] acts after [relevant plot point] considered [mental disorder/trauma response]?

Me: *Grabbing phone off desk to Google it* I hate you

Me: *Furiously Googling about who knows what*

Also me: You write fantasy, you know that, right?

Me:

Me talking to myself

yes, I talk to myself in the second person. I will also use the fourth person collective on occasion.

“Why can’t I write what I want to today?”

maybe because what you want to write is a cohesive story and you would mostly be staring at that damn taunting, blinking line of a cursor on the Google Doc

“I want to write chronologically!” too bad, you’re thinking of a random scene that’s over halfway through the story. I don’t make the rules

“Why can’t I write the main plot?”

because I said so. Now go back to writing about what happened hundreds of years before the main plot to explain the tension between the two sides

“What’s this character’s name again?”

Think of a new one. You know what it is, and it causes the Tiffany Problem. Think of a new one, you fucking idiot

do you ever think of something when you’re trying to sleep and tell yourself “I can write it down in the morning”?

I have, and every time I do im just lying to myself again

I’m not crying, there’s onions

I am crying

no, i just hate writing sometimes

Supernatural Romances make NO sense - A Random Opinion

Here's the thing: As much as I enjoy these concepts or tropes, they don't make sense when you take the time to think about it. Don't believe me? Let's go down the list then.

Vampire romances: The concept of a vampire romance really doesn't make sense when you take just five minutes to add all the aspects together.

Sure, it can be intriguing or whatever (especially if there’s a unique way in which the premise is handled), but let's really boil down the contents of its true implications here.

A vampire is a creature that feeds on human blood. Vampire romances USUALLY (not all the time, but usually) involve a vampire falling for a human rather than a vampire falling for another vampire.

Let me say this again. Vampire, which eats humans---then has stories where they then fall for humans.

That's like a chupacabra hooking up with a goat. What sense does it make for a creature to fall in love with something it usually tends to eat?

Even if the said predator of this relationship has no intention of eating their mate or harming them---would you, as a rational person, feel comfortable knowing that your partner has to harm YOUR species and eat them for their own survival? I highly doubt it.

"Oh, I know you kill people and drink their blood, but I know you won't kill ME! I'm just DIFFERENT--"

It literally makes no sense.

Zombie romances: Zombie romances make even less sense to me. Because now instead of a creature that simply wants your blood, it’s a creature that quite literally wants to rip your stomach open and eat your intestines like Twizzlers.

At least with a vampire, you could just have IV blood bags for them to drink to put off their thirst for a WHILE. But when it comes to zombies, they literally rely on eating the WHOLE entirety of the human.

Once again, it’s like a chupacabra dating a goat. Oh, but what if the zombie doesn’t want to eat or harm their partner?

Well, then we get into even more ethically concerning details on the human’s part. Because aren’t zombies walking corpses that eat people? And if a human is willing to date or become uh…'entangled’ with a zombie, isn’t that a form of necrophilia since the zombie is literally just a man-eating corpse? 

Sure, we could argue whether or not zombies are living or non-living. But let's be honest here: the majority of the time, zombies do not look cute. They are rotting parts of their bodies, they look dead, they smell horrible, they’re covered in blood, and sometimes missing a limb or two. If you’re unironically attracted to that in real life or something (not including those who JUST like the stories for the stories), you are mentally ill—there’s no way around it for me. You are attracted to something that looks like a corpse. That in itself is necrophilia and it’s honestly gross from an incredibly literal standpoint.

Even if the zombie were to look like some cutesy/idealistic anime character or something, it still doesn't change the fact that this thing's practically DEAD.

Sure, like vampire romances, it could be interesting depending on the intricacies of the story. But it still makes no sense when you write it down on paper. Wow, you’re dating a creature that looks dead and has to fight off the urge to eat people every single second they're on this planet. How quirky. 

Ghost romances: Ghost romances also don’t make sense on paper. Now, this one is a bit more loose in my opinion since ghost archetypes are often experimented with in terms of what they can do or not do. It’s just one of those things where it really depends on the story world and the premise it's placed in. However, from the very cultural and general stance of how ghosts work, they can’t touch anything (except when it's to conveniently scare people, so even then, their intangibility is transient) and they can’t age. 

I’m sorry, but aren’t the driving points of a romance being able to see the characters display affection and/or get old together? And if a ghost can’t touch anything, what’s the point in being romantically involved with someone you can’t kiss? I get there’s long distance relationships, but if they’re in the same room with you—why would you want that? 

Even if the subject of physical intimacy wasn’t an issue, there’s still the prospect of aging. Because if your boo (pun intended) died young and is a ghost, that means they’re physically stuck at that age forever. Even if they were to be centuries older than you, wouldn’t it be weird to see some elderly person smooching on a young looking supernatural?

Let me put it like this. A human woman at 25 years old is in a relationship with a male ghost. The said male ghost died at 30. Sure, she could get away with dating him for another five or ten years, but eventually, the human woman ages in appearance physically and looks older than her ghost partner. And if she lives long enough, she’s gonna be 80 while her boo still looks 30. You’re seriously telling me that DOESN’T look weird from the outside? Wouldn't you be weirded out if some super old person was smooching up with someone decades younger than them?

At that point, to avoid any oddities, you’d be better off killing yourself in whatever spot they’re stuck to so you wouldn’t have to worry about aging out of proportion in the relationship (and if not aging, then to touch them). That sounds like a lot more work than it’s worth.

Werewolf romances: Werewolf romances are the only sort of supernatural romance I could possibly get behind—and even then, it’s still highly dependent on how the said story chooses to handle the workings of lycanthropy. 

At least with this partner, they most likely can turn humans who won’t HAVE to kill you out of survival. You don’t have to be sorry about some super weird complex age gap. And you can touch them. Sounds like a pretty decent basis so far. BUT there’s always a catch.

A werewolf is (duh) a person who can turn into a wolf (or wolf-like monster). When it comes to these beings, it really is a roll of the dice. Because some versions will make them seem they have no thought process or control at all—whereas others give them complete control. So to call a werewolf automatically dangerous to the well being of their human partner is rather tough to say off the bat. Though, I do know that all of that fur that sheds off of them will be annoying to deal with (and that’s not even counting all of the things they might chew up---like your shoes).

And while I would be inclined to agree that being in a relationship with a werewolf could most definitely be a form of beastiality, at the very LEAST a werewolf can revert back into a human the majority of the time. So as long as you’re only doing stuff with them as a human, you should technically be fine, right?

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I still don’t find much appeal in becoming romantically involved with someone who can become some giant creepy wolf abomination, but at least there’s SOME things in there you COULD manipulate depending on which universe you land into.

Overall, while I do think supernatural romances are indeed a fun concept (and I DO tend to enjoy some of these stories), there’s no way in HECK I think they’re ACTUALLY plausible (unless you add some major--MAJOR--plot armor).

Sometimes I think about putting my essays on substack or something but the idea of getting no views while actively feeding the ai scrapbot makes me want to

So.

what they don’t tell you about writing is AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!! AAAAAAAAAAHH!!!