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http://www.strangehorizons.com/guidelines/fiction-common.shtml

Creative person is having trouble creating.

a. Writer has writer's block.
b. Painter can't seem to paint anything good.
c. Sculptor can't seem to sculpt anything good.
d. Creative person's work is reviled by critics who don't understand how brilliant it is.
e. Creative person meets a muse (either one of the nine classical Muses or a more individual muse) and interacts with them, usually by keeping them captive.

Perfect timing! The above hits home right now.

And to think that a writer's block didn't used to be such a big deal. In the past, I was more inclined in general to play video games than to write, and there were also certain other projects such as Kanji in Context and my failed attempt to translate Mother: The Original Story.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Chelle:

How does this plot being pointed out as too common hit home? You've never written about a creative person.

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I actually thought that was something out-of-universe, unlike everything else listed which was in-universe.

[(Anonymous)]

Why would that one thing not be a story they've seen too often? There's nothing on the page talking about the problems with being a writer.

I'm trying to figure out what you're saying with this entry; are you having a writer block right now, or just remarking you didn't understand it before, or something else? (If it's the first, there's some things you could try to work around it.)

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I was having a writer's block of sorts, having had to force myself to write through that chapter I showed you. Wasn't really up to writing anything at that time; I do expect to revisit it on Monday, but sure, any tips you might have are more than welcome.

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Unrelated but just to compress things, I have just left the following review on chapter 2 of Cries Unheard today:

You do know that in Japan, the end of school doesn't coincide with summer vacation, and that the break between the end of one school year and the beginning of the next is much shorter than in America, right? This is even evidenced by certain episodes of the anime itself; summer vacation during the girls' junior year takes place through episodes 5 and 6, while 14 shows the break between school years, followed by 15 marking the beginning of their senior year.

What's going on, is that school has just ended for the main characters, and the author is obviously assuming that summer vacation is what comes between school years in Japan like it does in America. (It actually falls between March and April, from what I gather.)

What I'm getting at, is that I'm not sure how to respond to the author's reply, which consisted solely of "....ok?" What might you make of that?

[(Anonymous)]

If you can force yourself, that's a good start already. Smaller chunks may help; for example you decide to write one paragraph of something, anything, each day.

How do you handle writing chapter by the way? Do you do it linear, or do you write the bits you already know first and then fill in the rest?

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Gah, I dislike that kind of short replies for the same reason, they're hard to decipher. It's probably best to let it be and not respond at all, given it's neither enthusiastic, nor dismissive the author doesn't seem very interested.

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Normally, I write bits that I feel inclined to write when I have the muse to do so. For example, the point at which I decided once and for all to put the Hunt Club behind me was when I felt the urge to write the Miyakawa sisters' cameo, even though I vaguely knew for some time beforehand what would've happened in that scene.

With the sumo fic, I know most of what's going to happen, but attempted to go chronologically for the time being because I had no real muse to write any part of it in particular first. Really, I don't think I would have done any better with stuff still yet to happen if I attempted that first instead of the beginning of things.

Gah, I dislike that kind of short replies for the same reason, they're hard to decipher. It's probably best to let it be and not respond at all, given it's neither enthusiastic, nor dismissive the author doesn't seem very interested.

Yeah, this might be a case of the author just wanting to tell stories instead of having to get every little fact straight (especially since one of them, I Was Kagami Hiiragi, was based on a true personal story of his). I mean, there are Christian elements mentioned, such as hymnals or the Lake of Fire, even though Shintoism is obviously nothing like Christianity. Konata mentioning herself, Hiyori, and Patricia having been bullied (as well as Misao having been a bully herself), as we've established before, does not mesh with their character in canon (and that's even acknowledged between Kagami and Patricia in I Was Kagami Hiiragi). I also understand that psychotherapy, which is prominent in IWKH and the end of The Loss of Innocence, plays a much smaller role throughout Asia than in the west, and certain forms of it (such as talk therapy) do not exist there.

Such was my own case when I wrote Rockna & a Hard Place, which was inspired from a certain two-shot Earthbound fic involving sexual blackmail, and was meant to set up one of the antagonists' roles in part II of Monster Collection Chronicles.

Some might call it bad writing/storytelling, but since this author happens to like Lucky Star and has the creative talent to create what he creates, others might find it excusable enough.

[(Anonymous)]

You say that as if "just telling a story" is some sort of antithesis to "getting every little fact straight". It's really not, information gathering's a part of it just as much as anything else. Accessibility of information is another though, as the Internet is not always wieldy or reliable.

Why did this turn into talking about storycrafting when you first asked me about a social approach issue?

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Why did this turn into talking about storycrafting when you first asked me about a social approach issue?

Just wanted to compress things, is all.