I feel like when you’re writing, organizing chapters and dialogue is easy
but jfc, the amount of time it takes to constantly keep people moving and make sure they’re in the right spaces and trying to come up with wording for it is always such a shock.
Like, fuck, I made you pick up a coffee cup, you need to put it down at some point. also I can’t remember what I dressed you in, can you push up your sleeves? I don’t remember if you even have your shirt on.
and YOU. YOU OVER THERE, you got out of your chair earlier, but did you come back yet? Are you coming back? Where did you even go and why’d you get up? Fuck, I can’t make you sit down again already, you just stood up, go…over there. go get more coffee. Did you bring your mug with you? fine. bring the pot to the table and—wait, wasn’t the coffee pot already over here? shit, hold on, I need to go back and re-read and re-write
this is the most relevant thing i have ever read.
I think one of the most wild things as a writer is the sensation that you’re not actually directing your characters– they’re sort of directing themselves, and you’re scrambling around attempting to copy down whatever it was that they just did, but they don’t wait for you to finish copying. They just keep walking and talking and moving around and existing of their own volition and at some point you look up and you’re like “WHOA OKAY EVERYBODY BACK THE FUCK UP WHERE ARE WE”
It’s kind of like trying to write sheet music for an orchestra while it’s playing
You keep writing anyway. Inspiration is real, and it matters, but it’s not going to be there every day. And the work still needs to be done.
Here, I will quote myself:
If you only write when you’re inspired you may be a fairly decent poet, but you’ll never be a novelist because you’re going to have to make your word count today and those words aren’t going to wait for you whether you’re inspired or not.
You have to write when you’re not inspired. And you have to write the scenes that don’t inspire you. And the weird thing is that six months later, a year later, you’ll look back at them and you can’t remember which scenes you wrote when you were inspired and which scenes you just wrote because they had to be written next.
An author I love: i’m so sorry for not updating, please accept my apologies, life has been busy at the moment and i just didn’t have time to write, so sorry for making you wait-
Me, gently cupping their face in my hands: My friend. My dude. I’m the kind of idiot who waits years for the new season of a show. Who gets excited about the new part of a book series that hasn’t been published in a decade. Do you seriously think i’m not gonna be there cheering for you when you come back? That my support is dependent on you regularly publishing updates? That you owe me anything? No no no no no. I’ll love you whatever you chose to do. So go on having fun and living your life you gorgeous being <3
Me when an author I love stops updating: I hope she’s too busy either writing original fiction and getting published because she’s so talented and deserves to earn all the money for her amazing stories, or just living her best life because she’s amazing and deserves all the good things.
I think all writers need a friend who will encourage their desire to write absolute garbage. Not necessarily something that is badly written, but like, stupid self indulgent bullshit. “Cringey” aus or crossover fanfics. Aus or crossover fics of your own ocs.
Writing that stuff is fun and is great practice, but sometimes I feel like “wow, this is hardly productive, why am I even writing this, who else would ever want to read this?” The answer is your friend who encourages your trash writing, that’s who. Write it for yourself and for them.
