and I can say encouraging things to you too if you need them

[esmenet]

I think I need someone to say encouraging things to me about writing what I want to write even if it's bad, or writing without caring that it's not what I 'should' be writing, or just about writing in general. Please?

Comments

[terajk]

Write what makes you happy! Sometimes it can be scary--at least, I felt really vulnerable the one time I really let my id go--but sometimes you end up with a story you really like!

(Although right now my id wants something entirely different than the thing I'm supposed to be writing, eep. But forget I said that.)

[salinea]

Write. Everything you write is good for you writing. Write what you like, write what you enjoy, write what you're passionate about. Write without thinking about it. Write because it's fun. Write because it's tough. Write because it's how you improve. Write because you can.

[littlebutfierce]

*flails* OMG my whole personal writing credo is based around giving myself permission to write absolute shit. I feel like once I get the shit out, my brain is warmed up enough for me to sometimes produce things I like. But it wouldn't happen if I didn't let myself write shit.

Also! You know I love your writing!! *flails again*

[annotated_em]

Write what you want to write, and what you enjoy writing, and what you want to read. Whether it's "good" or not (whatever "good" is)--that's not important. That you are doing it because you want to and you enjoy it, that's the important part.

[alexseanchai]

If what you're writing isn't what you want to write, there's no way it'll be good.

[yifu]

Just write. Even if you start with "I've no idea what to write today hmm there was this idea I have about a retired vampire hunter what does she do nowadays ah that's right track down another vampire hunter who..." You can always edit and delete later.
Practice doesn't make writing easier, but it does make you more familiar with the tricks.

[ex_lionpyh573]

Hello, sport. This is a good first interaction to have, I think. UM this is actually a really difficult thing for me too, largely because what I've been writing recently is fanfiction and I don't know anybody outside of the internet who I am not quite certain would deplore that on principle (obvs this is a closet in which I intend to remain). A thing that is actually compatible with this literary-snobbery mindset is the fact that I feel free to raid all of my unpublished work for things to put into items I intend to publish; I know it is not really comme il faut in the fanfiction-writing world to classify fanfiction as 'practice' but honestly I stress about it less when I do that. I have gotten some oddly good and useable lines, out of secret private dreadful writing, which do not betray their ignoble origins.

I am also newly intensely anxious about writing tropes I like because I feel like it reveals too much about me: I can write a sex scene without worry because I'm not interested in sex (though then of course I am uneasy because I have no idea whether the scene is even intelligible to a person who is interested in sex) so it is safely impersonal, but even writing certain types of conversations is TERRIFYING because they are points of personal vulnerability. I am trying to reassure myself that no one can see my emotions over the internet unless I disclose them but it feels like disclosure just to have written the story and, like, what if someone from my daily life (in which I am 1000% less mushy than on the internet and kind of an arrogant robot) somehow finds them, etc, etc. Encouraging words, please.

A thing that is helping re: the above is the idea that I intend to give the story I am specifically thinking of as a gift to someone who likes the same sorts of things, so perhaps that could help you too, even if what you are worrying about is not fanfiction: if it is not enough for you that it gives you pleasure to write it, perhaps you may be consoled by the prospectve pleasure of someone else. Also I do believe that all writing improves one's hand at it IF that is a conscious objective; you can write on any subject, in any vein, however tawdry or sentimental or hackneyed, and do it well, and I think surmount a greater challenge by doing so than by beginning on an 'approved' subject.

[lookninjas]

I can say so much about this right now, given that I'm 70,000 words deep into one of the most self-indulgent things I've ever written, and have had to stop vanity searching myself in order to avoid all the "Jesus, why the hell isn't she writing anything good anymore?" comments. (To be fair, it has broken me of the habit of vanity searching, which is probably a good thing.)

My thought is, in the end, there's no way I could give the people complaining what they want. It's not like I've got fifty other fics in the pipeline that I could be working on -- if I wasn't writing this story, I wouldn't be writing at all. And if I did attempt to keep writing, if I was taking straw polls and trying to give the people what they want... I wouldn't be writing well. Because my heart wouldn't be in it.

This is a hobby. It's not school. It's not a job. You should enjoy what you're doing. You should feel passionate about it. You should want to do it. If you don't, you'll stop.

And for what it's worth? Despite the comments I've seen complaining about my one-track writing brain, I also have people who like what I'm doing. I think every fic does. Doesn't matter what it is, or how closely it dovetails with your own id, or whatever. Someone out there's gonna like what you're doing. And, you know, that person deserves to have fic they like, as much as anyone else does. So if you can't write for you as often as you'd like, write for that person out there going "OMG BRAINTWIN THIS MAKES ME SO HAPPY YOU DON'T KNOW." Because I can pretty much guarantee you that that person is out there. Somewhere.