I was listening to an art podcast and I heard someone use “creative hibernation” as a term to describe a period of time when your creative energy and flow of ideas is slowing down.
Honestly, it sounds so much better than “art block”. To me, “creative hibernation” sounds less like a negative thing and more like an organic part of the creative process.
“Art block” sounds very definite. They sound like something you MUST actively fight against to break them down in order to continue. “Hibernation” on the other hand sounds more like a thing that happens every now and then but that will go away on its own when it’s time. It’s a stage of gathering energy for the next creative pursuit. Art block on the other hand is an artificial, mental block that actually just seems to solidify the more you treat it like an obstacle to get around.
All creative people go through this type of slowing down all the time and it is completely alright. I thought I would share this because I think the right kind of mentality is actually one of the most important things of recovering your creative energy.
thinking about the sexy bits of a pwp fic before I write it: ehehe nice
writing the sexy bits in the first draft: this is so hot, yessss
writing every part of the fic that isn’t the sexy bits: why does this take twice as long as the rest of the fic put together every single time
editing my pwp: I already used “thrusting” in this part of the scene. Have I accounted for everyone’s limbs? Will my readers be able to accurately visualize this? How many synonyms are there for “slick”? Why is there no good word for nipples? Is this the same as every other sex scene I’ve ever written? Why are my tenses all over the places? Should this be a comma or a semicolon or a period? Is this sentence too long? Is it possible to get rid of more filter words? What about passive voice? Whose POV is this? IS THIS EVEN HOT ANYMORE???
please…another word for nipples…someone
not ‘nubs’
please not ‘nubs’
How about “faux sippy cups”…
😁😁😁
That’s when I hand it off to a friend and go “is this even hot? I can’t tell anymore”
Write a story where the main characters fuck up. Like, they let someone die because they were scared, or they reject a possible romantic interest out of snobbery and/or belief that nobody would have interest in them. Let your characters burn bridges, and let their mistakes have consequences. Some things are unforgivable, and it’s okay to have your main characters do these things. Everybody’s done something they regret. It’s hard (for me, personally) to do this because I love my characters so much, and I want them to succeed all the time, but it’s not realistic, and more importantly, it doesn’t make for as interesting as a story.
writing is weird because sometimes I’ll have no ideas and everything in my head is kind of quiet but then something will happen and it’s like there’s these goblins living in my brain that just start shouting little phrases at me until I sit down and finally write the poem or story or whatever
ancient greek and roman poets: sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story
me, banging pots and pans together: wake the fuck up goblins!! what the fuck is up!!
“Writing is the only hobby where people consider themselves a failure at it if they don’t become professional. My advice to writers– I’ve known a lot of writers who have that “I’m gonna write this book, and I’m gonna sell it, and I’m gonna be rich and famous” [attitude]. If they wrote it and sold it and were rich and famous, they would hit their base expectations and be merely satisfied. And instead, if they miss that, they are angry, bitter, and they grow increasingly twisted up inside, psychologically, and they’re really unhappy. Do you like it? Is it fun? Do you enjoy it? If you enjoy it, every time you write, you have completed something that has paid you off.”
— Patrick Rothfuss, The Wednesday Club, 07/11/2018 (via mudkippy)
But I think it’s worth noting that most – MOST – fanfiction writers don’t have betas and are doing pretty damn well without them. They won’t be putting ‘unbetaed’ in their tags or notes, and they just…don’t have ‘em.
It’s an absolutely normal part of the fanfiction process for the majority of writers. So if you feel like you’re doing something ‘Wrong’ because you’re just starting out without a beta, you’re not. Or it’s been a few years and you don’t have a beta. Or it’s been your entire fanfiction life and you don’t want a beta, you’re doing fine. Tbh, many writers pick up betas through acquisition – they’ve written so much that eventually one of their readers either offers, or they talk to a reader about it and that’s how that happens. And that’s why it is so hard to find betas, because the most common form of ‘acquiring a beta’ is just ‘I was writing for so long without one that eventually I had a regular reader who had a really good eye and seemed to like what I do so now they beta my work.’
Basically if you’re writing fanfiction without a beta or editor you’re doing nothing wrong, you’re great, and you’re super valid and awesome. You’re not even on the road less travelled, you’re on ‘the road most people are travelling on.’
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Brought to you by the: Tired of seeing people try to bring professional writing rules to fanfiction – especially ones specifically that make it very hard to write, or that impose forced rules of interaction, or that shame – when fanfiction is specifically about tossing a lot of those rules anarchistically in the trash so that people can have fun / enjoy a hobby.
co-sign!
I’m a professional writer of fiction and when I write professionally, I have colleagues and editors and copyeditors and proofreaders who go through everything I publish at various stages to make it the best (or most marketable, anyway) it can be.
when I write fanfic, I say fuck all that. this is for fun, this is for me, and I really don’t care if it’s perfect as long as I had fun with it.
Agree with all this. I mean, I enjoy workign with a beta because it makes me more confident, but I also enjoy just writing the thing and putting it out there.
At the same time, I realize I’m more experienced and confident than some. So if you’re struggling with how to actually write without an editor, if it makes you nervous or you still are driven to put out the best work you can (because you want to, not out of shame or obligation), I thought I’d share my three rules for self-editing. I taught intro philosophy courses when in grad school, so I’ve shepherded hundreds of students through one of their first college-level papers, and I guarantee you, “self-edited meta” was the gold standard most of them couldn’t reach. These seemed to help them just get on with it already.
Read it out loud. Especially if you’re a native English speaker, what “seems” right usually works better than memorizing rhetorical/grammatical rul
Leave it be for a while. Set your draft aside. Take a few hours – walk the dog, grab a Starbucks, do the laundry. Often enough, when you come back to it you’ll have fresh eyes and a much more creative frame of mind. Plus you’ll be reading your work more like a writer, not like someone sweating bullets over the finnicky details.
Just stop it already. In my experience, after about 3-4 edits you start seeing what you expect to be there and not what you’ve actually written. Even if it still doesn’t seem quite right, I’ll stop the whole tweaking cycle once I get to that point.
As I said, this is mainly for people nervous about putting their work out there, or for people who are driven to make their fic the best it can be because that’s what they want. If it works for you, great. If not, that’s reason enough to chuck it in the rubbish. As the OP said, this is meant to be fun.
