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Post by ScintillaMyntan on May 23, 2022 22:51:43 GMT -6
Do you feel that your writing now is just a grown-up extension of your childhood imagination?
And what exactly makes stories seem like such hard work as an adult when it used to be so easy? Most kids are imaginative; it seemed effortless to just improvise stories, whether we were writing them, playing with toys, or acting them out with other kids.
For myself, I think the most interesting to reflect upon are the stories I wrote in middle school, so past the little-kid make-believe stage. My stories then combined various things I thought were cool at the time, aliens, forests, secrets. And they served emotional needs: approaching school life with humor and depicting friends who never actually have to worry about fitting in or whether their friends really like them.
I'm not sure what happened. I don't feel like my writing now is the same thing grown up. I more feel like I stopped writing, grew up, learned writing as a 'craft,' and started writing as a formal and weighty thing.
I do know where my childhood imagination went. It went towards a more straightforward way of coping. I found that instead of going home and writing fun stories about friends discovering secret passages and befriending aliens, I could distance myself from the reality of preteen life by directly daydreaming about impressing people right there in the classroom. I stopped caring about stories for a long time and pretty much just pursued writing in high school and university because I was clinging hard to this identity of a 'creative person.'
So why is writing hard now? For one I think I have in my mind this sense that writers don't actually write for the same kind of fun children have; they're either trying to create high art that'll get awards from stuffy academics, or some dumb commercially successful entertainment. I know that's probably not quite true, but I have that unflattering dichotomy in my head when I write and don't want to be either one. I'm also much more critical in general. I actually worry whether my story is good, which is obviously important, but it takes away from that childhood freedom that maybe allowed me to make some spontaneously decent-for-a-kid stories back then just out of intuition. And speaking for myself, the coping daydreams became a long-term bad habit I still have that has probably taken the place of my former creative impulse.
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Post by havekrillwhaletravel on May 24, 2022 6:09:51 GMT -6
I agree with you! I miss the endless torrent of imagination I had when I was a kid. I remember daydreaming all the time, doodling and world-building on random scraps of paper, just having a constant stream of ideas. Now it's so hard to come up with anything.
I think part of it is - as you say - because of the self-filtering: I now worry about whether or not an idea is "good" instead of whether it's cool/fun. But I also think part of it is just that I have so little time. When I come home or it's the weekend, I'm either exhausted from work, or my mind is constantly worrying about the next deadline/thing-I-have-to-get/appointment/stuff-I-put-off-for-weeks-because-I'm-so-exhausted.
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Post by RAVENEYE on May 24, 2022 9:13:26 GMT -6
Wow, sounds like we're all in the same boat. Sheesh, Whale, reading your post was like reading my own mind. Exactly the same. I've been mourning this very thing recently, actually for the past four or five years. When I was a kid, I'd fill notebooks with story outlines/summaries, character builds, draw pictures of the things I was imagining, act out wild stories with cousins or alone in my room (we called them "movies." "Let's make a movie about..."), a neverending stream of imagination. When I went to college I was determined not to let that die, so I kept at it despite the workload. And then the neverending stream runs into desert. The change came with the rejection letters after college. Those letters caused me to realize that I was writing things derived heavily and obviously from other books and films. ("Wait, this isn't how this works?") That excited little kid slowly died in the face of the burden of doubt and the need to find something "original" to write. Then, years later, mental illness moves in and breaks my struggling creativity into little pieces. Hurray. It was hard to put two words together much less finish a story in a timely manner. Hnh, yeah, right. (I came to realize that I started writing in the first place as a way to escape a tense household. My sister escaped by being busy outside the house, I escaped by shutting my door and getting lost in other worlds. So what happens to my writing passion when I no longer need it as a coping mechanism? Or worse, when it contributes to the depression, anxiety, panic?) I feel like I'm just now getting my brain back on track. But I miss that excited little kid with endless ideas, even if they were derived, silly ideas. It would be so nice to lock that inner editor in the dungeon for a while and just write silly, wonderful, derived drivel. How freeing. Maybe we should do that on occasion? By the way, ScintillaMyntan , a story about an alien, a forest, and a secret sounds amazing. |
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Post by Caulder Melhaire on May 25, 2022 8:25:25 GMT -6
It went towards a more straightforward way of coping. I found that instead of going home and writing fun stories about friends discovering secret passages and befriending aliens, I could distance myself from the reality of preteen life by directly daydreaming about impressing people right there in the classroom. (I came to realize that I started writing in the first place as a way to escape a tense household. My sister escaped by being busy outside the house, I escaped by shutting my door and getting lost in other worlds. So what happens to my writing passion when I no longer need it as a coping mechanism? Or worse, when it contributes to the depression, anxiety, panic?) I....... .... fuck.  Why you gotta do this to me, it's too early in the day for uncomfortable realizations I've somehow been completely blind to for the last 20 years. I can definitely agree that if I put the maladaptive daydreaming on the backburner, I'd probably be able to get the creative factory up and pumping again. I dont know, I had more to add to this, but that legitimately blindsided me. |
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Post by RAVENEYE on May 25, 2022 9:55:36 GMT -6
It went towards a more straightforward way of coping. I found that instead of going home and writing fun stories about friends discovering secret passages and befriending aliens, I could distance myself from the reality of preteen life by directly daydreaming about impressing people right there in the classroom. (I came to realize that I started writing in the first place as a way to escape a tense household. My sister escaped by being busy outside the house, I escaped by shutting my door and getting lost in other worlds. So what happens to my writing passion when I no longer need it as a coping mechanism? Or worse, when it contributes to the depression, anxiety, panic?) I....... .... fuck.  Why you gotta do this to me, it's too early in the day for uncomfortable realizations I've somehow been completely blind to for the last 20 years. I can definitely agree that if I put the maladaptive daydreaming on the backburner, I'd probably be able to get the creative factory up and pumping again. I dont know, I had more to add to this, but that legitimately blindsided me. Oh gosh, Caulder. Didn't mean to do that to you! Whew, yeah, it's a tough realization. HOWEVER! The flip side! Once the processing has settled, and I've come to terms with the facts, and if/when the creativity rebounds, I can be assured that it's because I love writing, not because I'm hiding from myself or life or whatever. ... Writing from a place of authenticity after having survived a painful awakening? So much better. I hope the process brings you to this better, stronger place too. All I can encourage you to do at this point is lean into it, let the brain and heart go there with honesty. |
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Post by Alatariel on May 25, 2022 11:43:39 GMT -6
When I was younger, I would spend hours a day playing with toys and making up stories/worlds/scenarios. Then, as I got older and became a pre-teen, that ability slipped away. Or maybe transformed into writing rather than play. My stories were disjointed, juvenile, and cliched...but they were fun to write. I never finished anything because the plot got so convoluted as I went that I couldn't untie all the knots. So I adapted, became better at planning, and that's when some of the creativity drained out. As well as the voices telling me I'm not good enough, smart enough, creative enough, driven enough...writing as a teen was easier only because I had no intention of sharing it with anyone. Now I want to share it, I feel more pressure to be GOOD. I did have a lot of fun with one of the contest stories because I just dove in without any direction in mind, only a vague idea, and let the story pull me into the strange world it created. Was it a great story? No. Was it fun to write. Yes. So I guess for adult-me, there's a trade-off. Quality suffers when I just go for the fun aspect. But if I go for quality, the fun part suffers. A balance can be found. Right now I'm working on a story that I found VERY fun to write at first but has become a bit of a slog now that I've hit the middle. How do I infuse fun back into it? I guess I have to figure out what made it fun in the first place. The feeling of newness and uncertainty when beginning a story. The middle is hard because I'm locked into these characters, situations, and motivations. I need them to evolve a certain way and so it's less about discovery for me and more about careful execution of plans. Maybe I can place the characters in a fun situation (fun for me, to clarify, not necessarily fun for them) or a new setting. That should make it more interesting for the reader, too, since the middle typically slows down for them just as much as it does for the author. Anyways...in conclusions...writing as a teen was more fun but less organized which led to many abandoned projects. I do seriously miss being able to sit and play with my animal figures for hours and hours. It's not fair. Now that I'm a parent, my kid wants to PLAY just like I did and I am incapable.  |
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Post by Caulder Melhaire on May 25, 2022 15:22:50 GMT -6
It's all good LOL! Just hit me like a ton of bricks. Looking back at when my writing fervor first started to taper off... yeah. I was definitely starting to heal, then. Maybe it's time to reassess exactly why I'm writing and what I want to tell in my stories, and see if that gets me past the block.
Yeah, as a kid, writing was so easy because it was just letting my internal story spill out onto paper. What happens next? Whatever seems cool and functional. I had pages upon pages of notes, ideas, and all kinds of lore (a thick blue 3-ring binder that I had to upsize when I hit my teenage years) and not a single one of them was devoted to anything related to a "tight plot." Every single word of it was fun and exciting, and the overall concepts were fantastical in the way that only a kid can come up with. But reading over the paper copies of them now, it's difficult to look at without wanting to drown it in red pen. I've learned too much LOL I lost that ability to write just to write, and replaced it with the task of bending a story to fit all the rules and guidelines that come with writing something that won't get me laughed out.
The first series I ever tried to write (NOT Prophet, THAT drek is far too accursed to be a doorstopper; it might sooner rot the house around the door) had some pretty sick concepts, and I've recycled many of them in current works. But holy hellbiscuits, what was a main plotline? HOW many POV's do I have with main characters to follow? 'Cause I never sat down to worry about them. I just let the plot run where it may, and tried to keep up. It's definitely different now, where even the simplest of prompts has me worldbuilding for hours and trying to make sure everything fits into a logical series of events - and don't forget the twist at the end!
That being said... I think there's definitely something useful in learning how to harness that chaotic energy to help our stories. I hear people talk about how the characters took a relationship in an unexpected direction and it shifted the story completely, or something in the world shifts in an unintended reaction to some action and it altered the hero's course forever. I'd like to think it's a bit of that old magic, peeking through to help us remember that it's not a bad thing to just let the words run sometimes.
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Post by Sundrinker on May 25, 2022 19:44:28 GMT -6
I remember as a young teen I had a lot of story concepts that I wanted to explore (but never did). It was a time in my life where I felt isolated and didn’t have many friends, feeling generally unsatisfied with myself and the world, etc. You know what I’m talking about. I felt like I had something to say, to share back then.
Two things happened in college afterwards. First, I had a major depression, which killed all the chatter going on in my head all the time (but cured my insomnia at the same time!) It was quite an experience. No thoughts, no desires, no motivation, no feelings, no creativity; just going through the motions at all times. Nothing I’d ever want to go through again…
I did manage to get though it and 2-3 years later something else happened; things were starting to get good. I’ve been part of this manga/anime group in college for a while and I got a girlfriend lol. Things shifted after that. I felt more social, more comfortable. The people I’ve been hanging out with at the club started feeling more like friends. I entered my “popular” phase. My grades were decent and learning how to drive gave me a feeling of independence and self-sufficiency. My religious practices were also doing well despite the, uh, girlfriend part.
Things were just going well and… nothing. No ideas, no creativity. There wasn’t anything, no message, I felt I had to get out to the world. Although I didn’t feel bad about it that it. I just accepted that it was okay that way at that time.
Do I have anything to say now? Yeah, somewhat, but nothing like before. The things I’ve wanted to say before are either forgotten or don’t feel relevant anymore. I don’t have fantastical stories anymore. Instead, I have some tidbits of wisdoms I’ve picked up over time. There aren’t a lot and they’re not easy to put into words, but someday, at some point, they’ll trickle out.
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Post by RAVENEYE on May 26, 2022 9:10:31 GMT -6
Do I have anything to say now? Yeah, somewhat, but nothing like before. The things I’ve wanted to say before are either forgotten or don’t feel relevant anymore. I don’t have fantastical stories anymore. Instead, I have some tidbits of wisdoms I’ve picked up over time. There aren’t a lot and they’re not easy to put into words, but someday, at some point, they’ll trickle out. Yeah, planting those tidbits of wisdom as the heart of a story, its theme or what have you, will (hopefully) make all the pain and struggle worth it. |
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Post by HDSimplicityy on Jun 14, 2022 23:03:26 GMT -6
My imagination wasn't for creative writing as a child. I did have one - imagining flying my X-Wing into the sights of Star Destroyer turbolasers, which was just a combo of plastic chair and tables outside. Or playing as Anakin and my, uh... sister (yep.. oops)... as Padme. I even did a fake air kiss to her once. With lips. No, we did not make contact. *snort* lol.
In high school, World War II history was my jam. I often read or watched TV and movies, or played videogames, in the European Theater. One of my friends and I would imagine shooting at bad guys in waves. We'd lay prone on the edge of the front yard, which was a slope at the end. And make rifle or machine gun firing sounds. I do that now in writing instead. But no Wolfenstein... leave that for those ridiculous games.
I started writing purposefully in October 2015. Was it the beginning of November? I go with October. Anyway, I never knew that I had this visual imagination, this playground. I started conjuring up images and ideas. Some inspired by my hobbies. I don't say that my childhood imagination returned. It was something I never had growing up - a creative writing drive. Hated writing essays in high school. I did not enjoy writing them in my early college years. It was only until the last? year of undergraduate studies that I did. And ONLY when the topic was interesting to me.
Today I like them much more when I am invested. Storytelling is my life moreso than when I was a kid. Writing those powerful, emotional, fun, life-long impacting stories. I will pass that down to when I have kids of my own.
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Post by HDSimplicityy on Jun 14, 2022 23:08:00 GMT -6
When I was younger, I would spend hours a day playing with toys and making up stories/worlds/scenarios. Then, as I got older and became a pre-teen, that ability slipped away. Or maybe transformed into writing rather than play. My stories were disjointed, juvenile, and cliched...but they were fun to write. I never finished anything because the plot got so convoluted as I went that I couldn't untie all the knots. So I adapted, became better at planning, and that's when some of the creativity drained out. As well as the voices telling me I'm not good enough, smart enough, creative enough, driven enough...writing as a teen was easier only because I had no intention of sharing it with anyone. Now I want to share it, I feel more pressure to be GOOD. I did have a lot of fun with one of the contest stories because I just dove in without any direction in mind, only a vague idea, and let the story pull me into the strange world it created. Was it a great story? No. Was it fun to write. Yes. So I guess for adult-me, there's a trade-off. Quality suffers when I just go for the fun aspect. But if I go for quality, the fun part suffers. A balance can be found. Right now I'm working on a story that I found VERY fun to write at first but has become a bit of a slog now that I've hit the middle. How do I infuse fun back into it? I guess I have to figure out what made it fun in the first place. The feeling of newness and uncertainty when beginning a story. The middle is hard because I'm locked into these characters, situations, and motivations. I need them to evolve a certain way and so it's less about discovery for me and more about careful execution of plans. Maybe I can place the characters in a fun situation (fun for me, to clarify, not necessarily fun for them) or a new setting. That should make it more interesting for the reader, too, since the middle typically slows down for them just as much as it does for the author. Anyways...in conclusions...writing as a teen was more fun but less organized which led to many abandoned projects. I do seriously miss being able to sit and play with my animal figures for hours and hours. It's not fair. Now that I'm a parent, my kid wants to PLAY just like I did and I am incapable. We can be good. It takes more effort TO be good. As kids, that sense wasn't there. As long as it made us laugh, hit each other with water noodles, shoot Nerf guns, or scream bloody murder from a closet, our stories thrived. Some of the others here did the correct thing by writing the ideas down for later. lol |
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