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Archunt3r

Dreamer
Hi Everyone, *waves excitedly*

The names Archunt3r, Arc, or Archie is fine :) I am new here and I thought I'd take a moment to introduce myself. I write a lot of Sword and Sorcery styled books. I am currently stuck with writer's block but I am having the urge to write so I'm hoping I can get past it and produce something great, hope to be able to get to know everyone soon :)
 

Archunt3r

Dreamer
Thanks maker :) I'm hoping so, ive started yet another story mind you only a few sentences long before I stopped cause I wasntnsure if its a good start I should of worked on some of my other stories haha, but I dont know where to start with questions
 
If you are starting lots of stories but not finishing them and are a visual thinker, then you probably have ADD. The process that you need to use to get things done ..... isn't quite the same as everyone else. I speak from experience on that one.

As for the beginning - skip it. You'll rewrite a dozen times later. Whatever you wrote down is a great start! And a perfect beginning to a new story - keep writing!

All the best, ABR
 

Archunt3r

Dreamer
If you are starting lots of stories but not finishing them and are a visual thinker, then you probably have ADD. The process that you need to use to get things done ..... isn't quite the same as everyone else. I speak from experience on that one.

As for the beginning - skip it. You'll rewrite a dozen times later. Whatever you wrote down is a great start! And a perfect beginning to a new story - keep writing!

All the best, ABR

I've never thought of that, yeah I seem to like starting a lot of stories and have so many on the go it sucks haha, plus so many other starts to ones I've sort of started writing, I just don't know how to get past it to be honest cause I get to a point then I feel like I get walled and can't think of why I can't get past it.
 
It could be ADHD. The YouTube channel 'How to ADHD' (How to ADHD) has a bunch of videos about it.

If you are starting projects but cannot continue with them then it's the adrenaline kicking in. That gets the brain to function at a normal level. As the project moves into "boring" stuff, the brain shuts down and you move onto another project. Really annoying. This is something that I am dealing with myself.
 
I would be very hesitant diagnosing anyone online, based on 3 sentences. Not being able to finish a piece of writing is very common for (especially new) writers. It's usually a case of writing anything longer than a piece of flash fiction takes a lot of time and dedication. And often people have an initial idea of how a story starts and / or how it ends, but no idea about the middle bit. And so they run out of steam after the initial rush wears of and the first idea is down on the page.

If you want to write, dedicate some fixed time each week to writing and force yourself to sit down and write. If you don't know what to write, then maybe try a different approach. If you've never planned a story, try outlining it for a change. Write a summary of the chapter you want to write and then write that. Or do the reverse. If you've always planned your stories, maybe try just putting your hands to your keyboard and write. Or free write something.

As for it being good enough. Don't worry. It isn't and that's okay. To quote Neil Gaiman (in a Masterclass commercial): "the purpose of your second draft is to pretend you knew what you were doing all along." And there's also the common "You can edit/rewrite everything except a blank page." For most writers, even famous bestselling authors, the first draft is not great. But it's a start and you can refine it from there.

Also, to look at it from another angle. Writing is an art. Getting better takes practice. Compare it to music. If you would sit down behind a piano for the first time, do you expect to be able to play like a concert pianist? Of course not. Writing is the same. You get better as you write more, and that's the only way to get better. A piano player doesn't improve by reading books about piano playing, but by playing the piano. So write and don't worry about how good it is.
 

Archunt3r

Dreamer
I would be very hesitant diagnosing anyone online, based on 3 sentences. Not being able to finish a piece of writing is very common for (especially new) writers. It's usually a case of writing anything longer than a piece of flash fiction takes a lot of time and dedication. And often people have an initial idea of how a story starts and / or how it ends, but no idea about the middle bit. And so they run out of steam after the initial rush wears of and the first idea is down on the page.

If you want to write, dedicate some fixed time each week to writing and force yourself to sit down and write. If you don't know what to write, then maybe try a different approach. If you've never planned a story, try outlining it for a change. Write a summary of the chapter you want to write and then write that. Or do the reverse. If you've always planned your stories, maybe try just putting your hands to your keyboard and write. Or free write something.

As for it being good enough. Don't worry. It isn't and that's okay. To quote Neil Gaiman (in a Masterclass commercial): "the purpose of your second draft is to pretend you knew what you were doing all along." And there's also the common "You can edit/rewrite everything except a blank page." For most writers, even famous bestselling authors, the first draft is not great. But it's a start and you can refine it from there.

Also, to look at it from another angle. Writing is an art. Getting better takes practice. Compare it to music. If you would sit down behind a piano for the first time, do you expect to be able to play like a concert pianist? Of course not. Writing is the same. You get better as you write more, and that's the only way to get better. A piano player doesn't improve by reading books about piano playing, but by playing the piano. So write and don't worry about how good it is.

Yeah totally agree, I've been writing for ages, but I never seem to finish most projects I think out of the 12 or more I've done I've finished maybe 2 I think. I've never been one for planning, to be honest, I don't know how haha I've always written with the flow and that could be why. I don't know haha. most of what I'm rewriting and struggling at is like a second draft but cause it's completely different to the very first original piece it's like a first draft again. it's hard when you like one start but people suggest doing the start different from critiques and then it spirals cause it's like what way works better cause both seem to work.
 
One of the things that changed for me was attempting NaNoWriMo (where you try to write 50k words in a month). This forced me to keep working on a piece and stopped me from any editing or much self-reflection on the quality of the writing. After all, the 1.666 words per day average you need for 50k words doesn't leave any time for that sort of thing.

During the month I found out that I need to know what I'm going to write if I want to get any writing done at all. Which for me meant I needed to plan after I had written the 3 or so chapters that were in my head. This helped me gain and keep momentum.

Some common advise I've seen from professional authors is that they never show first drafts to anyone until they are finished (or at least are very hesitant to do so). Of course, writing is different for everyone, so I'm sure there are just as many who show everything as soon as they've written it. But they say that for them, when they are writing a first draft, any comments distract from the writing and they get a bit of what you have. They go back and rewrite the first part and get more feedback and rewrite that and never get anything finished. So instead, they focus on just getting it all done and only then go for feedback.
 
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