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So Kyoto Secunda and her Clone Sister Kyoto Secunda Prime are doing Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month) trying to do 4000 words in 30 days, which is pretty decent for 4th graders. (one of them is past 8k with 20 days to go!)

Talking to them about story ideas got me thinking about how fanfic can be used as a curriculum for creative writing. Do it step by step, different kinds of fanfic, and lead them to original writing. Something like...

1. The Mary Sue/Marty Stew/idealized author insertion.

Let's all just get it out of our system shall we? Get the students used to putting words on paper in some sort of order but with little pressure since Mary Sue stories are the lowest form of fiction and meant to be cringy.

Though Ken Kyoto was but a first year student, he quickly defeated Draco Malfroy, Delores Umbridge, Professor Snape and Voldamort. He was named prefect, best boy, class president, head of school and Minister of Magic in short order, Harry Potter bowed to him and gave him his wand, and Ken dated Hermone, Cho Chang and Ginny and lived happily ever after.

2. The cross over

Working with two properties the writer presumably knows and loves to get used to writing different styles.

"You just got here! What makes you think you can beat Voldamort?"
"I'm Batman!"

3. The expy

The exported character, while the crossover brings over other properties wholesale, the expy at least tries to localize them.

"Harry meet your new Defense against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Bryce Vain. He is a half-vampire master of shadow magic."
"I am the night!"

4. The slash

At some point the writers need to learn to write romance, so, yeah, let's give it a try.

"Professor Vain, you're so darkly alluring, there's something about you that just draws me in."
"Professor McGonagall, though I have devoted my life to my mission of Dark Vengeance, somehow when I see your face it is like a sun breaking through dark clouds."
"Kiss me!"

5. The reskin

Now we need to move towards turning fanfic into something original that can stand on its own. We're not going too far out on a limb yet, but just taking the premise and making it our own.

Larry Blotter stood in Port Authority bus terminal and swallowed hard. This was it, the big leap of faith, the Hog's Hedge School for the Psychically gifted in upstate New York. Would they help him understand the strange things that happened around him or would it be another dead end?

6. The original creation

And finally the writers have to strip any vestiges of fanfic and create something that stands without the crutch.

Larry sat on his bed looking over the autumn colors of upstate New York. It had been a hard time adjusting to life at boarding school, even one as prestigious as Saint Stephens. There had been loneliness, bullies, teachers with a power trip, and of course the crushing course demands. But there had also been friends, and new adventures. And while being sent away stung he had learned that family, real family, was the people who chose to be with you in your darkest hours.

So basically take students through the journey that fanfic writers go through organically and lead them from the cringy weeds of Mary Sues to the well tended gardens of original works that speak with the author's own voice.

I may like Harry Potter, or Superman, or 40k but if I ever write them professionally there are things I'd want to change, probably so many I'd end up with a completely different concept, and I think it would be a blast to lead students on that trip.

Sounds good to me. The main challenge is writing; getting words on paper, so anything that gets a would-be writer writing is good. Even if the result is cringy. That's for step two; revising, which for the inexperienced can often be an even greater challenge. After all, they are an undiscovered genius and whatever they have just produced is so absolutely effing brilliant that no revision is needed!*

A protip from Raymond Chandler for dealing with a lack of ideas or the plot getting stuck. "When I have no idea what to write next, I send a man through the door with a gun." The idea being that you start writing again instead of just agonizing over it, and at the very least, the plot moves forward once the protagonist has beaten the thug and forced him to answer, "Who sent you?" "It was Carlo Vespucci."

The cops picked up the thug and his gun, and my old adversary Lt. McLauren read me the riot act for stirring up trouble again. Once they left, I poured myself two fingers of whisky, and sat down to think. With a name like Carlo Vespucci, one could be forgiven for thinking him from an old school Mafia family, going all the way back to the Old Country. He wasn't. Just a two-bit player, a wanna-be, but just crafty enough to stay off the cops' radar. At least most of the time. So why the hell was he getting involved in this investigation?

Hardly great stuff, but there's at least something to revise and develop further. For instance, instead of just telling the audience about Lt. McLauren and the riot act, show it.

"Rafferty, of course, always causing trouble for honest, hard-working cops."
"Well, I'm sorry for troubling the boys, but it's not like honest and hard-working applies to you, Lt. McLauren. Do you good to get out and actually earn your paycheck for once."

Presumably things escalate from this point ...

*And that's an example of why you should revise. If you use THREE adjectives, and you (or the character speaking) are not being sarcastic, then you need more effective nouns and verbs.

Definitely. The nice thing about Fanfic as a gateway is the writer has characters, setting, the world, and probably strong opinions about how it should have gone.

Snape was absolutely right about Potter being and arrogant POS!

And just something like that totally contextualizes the story, what if you did Harry Potter from all POVs except Harry's? And made the story a lesson on who you are in your head is not who you are in anyone else's!

And getting there from wanting to look at an aspect of Harry Potter is easier than getting there from a blank piece of paper.

I know a few people who've transitioned from fanfic writing to original publications. As you say, one of the things that makes it a useful learning space is that you already have characters, setting, and even plot elements to play with. You're not completely making things from scratch so you have more opportunity to focus on the act of writing itself.

I mentioned in the Knight thread, I started a self-indulgent author appeal fic, but it is becoming a serious work. I've had to write an outline to keep the ideas and chronology clear, start an universe journal containing enough details so plot and background elements grow organically out of it instead through author fiat. As the characters traveled 4500 miles on foot to their destination, I had to justify why that much territory was unclaimed by anyone and inhospitable, and so "A Wizard Did It"; the Fall of the Old Empire [Roman Empire expy, of course) started with the magical destruction of its capital and the results slowly spread to create The Barrens. I now know what species is the oldest in that world [Spoiler alert: It ain't the elves for once. Elves are the oldest mammalian species.] Also, this is becoming a clash of cultures/stranger in a strange land story. Basically pre-European contact Polynesian flower child nudist elves visiting my usual medieval Wales expy. That culture clash is more interesting than my original intent, and so I'm running with it, and so now I'm seriously universe building.

Mind, I am enjoying this, but what I'd intended as a short fic for my own pleasure ,and which I thought would be done by now, is now consuming all my spare time and energy.

Heck look at how many fantasy settings rely heavily upon the reading having at least a casual understanding of fantasy tropes, Lord of the Rings and DnD concepts. Reinforced through multiple re-interpretations.

If you say "elf" in any fantasy book, most readers instantly have a minds-eye concept for what an elf is.



So yep even major works rely heavily upon these concepts of common ground to help flesh out their world.



Heck there's more than a few pretty major stories that started out life as DnD campaigns - Malazan Book of the Fallen is a huge series that was birthed from RPG gaming; which is basically group-play-fanfiction stories and adventures.




I think the only risk with using fan-fiction as a grounding to encourage writing is that the person has to learn how to branch out from the fanfiction to creating their own content. And that's only a risk if you want to branch out; some people are more than happy to stick too and mess around with fanfiction work.

Heck if you want to be daring you can call Lord of the Rings an English folklore fanfic.

Tolkien was very rigorous in documenting where he got his ideas from and very clear in his feeling that he wasn't inventing something new but codifying and mapping what was already there in English/Northern European culture.

Hobbits were based on stories of little people and even the word Hobbit, which Tolkien himself thought he had coined, he later found older references to the word and he may have subconsciously recalled it.

The point being, ain't nothing wrong with inspiration - if I have seen far it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants - and all that.

And when you learn to ride a bike ain't nothing wrong with some training wheels.

And if you're going to write you need passion and if Harry Potter meets Batman will give you that passion then take it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh as part of the discussion with the Wonder Twins I showed them the original Mary Sue story from the 70s, a Trekies Tale.

https://fanlore.org/wiki/A_Trekkie%27s_Tale

(Which yes is meant as a parody of fanfic)

Kyoto Secunda Prime thought it was OK but a little unrealistic how Mary Sue could win the Noble Peace Prize in her first week.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Heck if you want to be daring you can call Lord of the Rings an English folklore fanfic..

There is a saying.

Good artists barrow.

Great artists steal.

We've been soft trying to get my kids interested in a family DnD game. . . They (10 and 13) of course said, "we don't know how!! we can't do that!!"

So, Wife started off with, "when you're playing outside with your stuffies, what do you do?" so got my son to re-enact the stuffy play. . .


And at the end, go, "see. . . that is basically DnD, you're just not using the game itself yet"

So, on the topic of this thread, yeah breaking down creative writing into something that the student already knows and get them to get creative with some aspects of it to be a building block would likely work far better than "Here's a writing prompt that no one has cared about for the last 40 years, even I the teacher had this same writing prompt when I was your age, now go and creative write on this prompt". Especially because nowadays, fandoms are "cool", so the teacher themselves aren't going to be tortured with 30 of the same story for the 10th year. (obviously, I'm talking of doing this in an official school setting, not writing challenges in the outside world)

Fan fic has the advantage that the write does not have to create everything from scratch. So you can focus your exercise on specific aspects and work on those. And once you get comfortable with all the different aspects (character development, world building, plot, etc. etc) then you can move on to less derivative and more original works.

Sounds like a good idea.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Heck if you want to be daring you can call Lord of the Rings an English folklore fanfic.

Tolkien was very rigorous in documenting where he got his ideas from and very clear in his feeling that he wasn't inventing something new but codifying and mapping what was already there in English/Northern European culture.

Hobbits were based on stories of little people and even the word Hobbit, which Tolkien himself thought he had coined, he later found older references to the word and he may have subconsciously recalled it.

The point being, ain't nothing wrong with inspiration - if I have seen far it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants - and all that.

It was my understanding that Professor Tolkien wished to create a English national epic, along the lines of the Kalevala of Finland or the Mahabharata of India (The 700 verses of The Bhagavad Gita are but a small part of the greater whole). This does not contradict anything you've written above.

The names of Gandalf and Thorin's company are from an Icelandic poem, and Gandalf means "wand elf". "Alf" is also found in Anglo-Saxon sources and names, thus "Alfrede", an early form of Alfred, meaning 'elf council', i.e. wise council. I've used this for RPG characters in the past, so Alfwine (elf friend), and Alfbearn (born of elf), both half elves.

Regarding inspiration: "Nihil novus sub solis." There is nothing new under the sun. This is true. The point is how each writer or artist takes familiar elements and elaborates upon them to make something different enough that it can pass for new. Shakespeare is often hailed as the greatest playwright in the English language, and yet he was stealing most of his ideas from prior plays on the same subject. We can only assume that his take on the subject was better as his plays have been preserved, and those he stole from were not. And often readers (and viewers of visual media such as movies and print comics) really want "same yet different." There are enough Conan and Lovecraft pastiches out there as evidence for that. Oh, and DaVinci Code pastiches ... When I was still a bookseller, my co-workers and I had to deal with oh so many of them. And very few are worth reading, I'll add.

 Overread wrote:
Heck look at how many fantasy settings rely heavily upon the reading having at least a casual understanding of fantasy tropes, Lord of the Rings and DnD concepts. Reinforced through multiple re-interpretations.

If you say "elf" in any fantasy book, most readers instantly have a minds-eye concept for what an elf is.

Robert E. Howard certainly used many national expys for Conan's Hyborian World, not even bothering to file off the names in some cases. Thus he benefited from existing connotations current at the time of writing. Mainstream writers do this too, so it is a legitimate tool. Of course, Robert E. Howard and Conan have set a number of fantasy tropes for the "fur jockstrap" fantasy genre as well.

And speaking of trope use, Jack Chalker's River of Dancing Gods series has its start in fantasy tropes prevalent at the time, justifying them through the use of The Rules, which defined how the world worked. It is why the protagonist, Joe, a trucker from our earth, once he choose his new role in a general sense, was forced into the Conan archetype by the Rules. Similarly, and this is a direct quote, ' weather and climate permitting, all beautiful young women must be scantily clad'. So he was both poking fun at and using said tropes to his advantage. He wrote a five book series with that starting seed.

By the same token, connotations can have negative effects, so inventing a new name may be necessary. As much as I enjoy and respect Professor Tolkien's corpus of work, I think I need to distance my nascent Polynesian elves from his Sindar. So inspired by, influenced by, but not direct expys.

Also, though the posting of this thread prompted me to write, I'm not writing fanfic. Lots of expys, and a major seed was that rule about beautiful young women (see TV Tropes, Author Appeal. Poster not responsible for lost time), but it's not LotR, Conan, Katherine Kerr's Deverry series, and so on. Most certainly not Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns or Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion cycle.

BTW, good thread.

Ah, one more thing ... <Columbo>
Also, for the readers' pleasure, tossing in references to other works. A number of fantasy writers have made passing reference to Merry's quote in The Two Towers. "Meddle not in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger." Usually not using the full quote though. "You know what they say about meddling in the affairs of wizards." The second character, like Pippin, then arguing why meddling is needed, "Yes, yes, I've heard the saying, but ..." So it does double duty, it carries the dialogue, and the reader has a moment of amusement from the reference.

It's worth noting that Tolkien's mission of creating a British national myth succeeded beyond all expectations.

Not only is LotR one of the best selling books ever, a whole library of novels, RPGs, video games, etc stand in its shadow.

The fact that words like orc and hobbit pass my spell checker is pretty good testimony to his achievement.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
It's worth noting that Tolkien's mission of creating a British national myth succeeded beyond all expectations.

Not only is LotR one of the best selling books ever, a whole library of novels, RPGs, video games, etc stand in its shadow.

The fact that words like orc and hobbit pass my spell checker is pretty good testimony to his achievement.

Not only that but he lit the beacon that basically created those fantasy markets. I'd argue he somewhat failed to make a British Mythology but he very much was one of the major cornerstones that created, at the very least, western fantasy. I think he took fantasy from childrens stories and short adventures and helped make it into something serious and something deep. Something that extends beyond 1 or 3 novels. Into something where you can write about whole civilizations, languages, worlds, magical systems and more. He showed the value of a deep lore and his was deep enough that many have used it to springboard their own and taken it further.

Indeed, barring language (where I'd argue he's still one of hte best at creating his own), many fantasy systems today have taken his lore foundation and created their own, many just as if not deeper still.

I've thought some about it and as long as it isn't anime based I think it is fine. I mean, a ninja running around in an orange sweater? That is just silly.

/thread
I've thought about doing some 40K fanfic as a way of getting into creative writing, so I can write a successful sci-fi novel, so that I can get to write a Black Library novel

Part of this idea came from thoughts on how I might reskin a 40k story.

One idea is to replace the religious elements with bureaucratic ones.

IE Instead of Inquisitor Dolor who serves the God Emperor of Mankind and fights the Xenos and Heretics, you get:

Humanity left the Cradle Worlds more than ten millennia ago and proliferated across the stars. Cybernetics and genetic techniques adapted humanity for countless environments but gave rise to new horrors, genetically-tailored diseases, superhuman warrior clans, and abominations created by insane minds.

Inspector Lieutenant (JG) Dolor was raised from birth by the Bureau of Technology Inspection and Control to serve as one of the inspectors who seek out prohibited use of technology and eliminate, or at least contain the threats they pose.

Their authority was far-reaching, but their numbers few. Their commands in theory came from the Bureau itself, a vast interstellar bureaucracy that sucked in information from countless settlements and spat out orders for investigation. Dolor had never been to the actual Bureau, supposedly a continent-covering megapolis of data-banks, offices and sealed vaults somewhere in the Cradle Worlds. He could not even be sure it still existed. But his orders came from somewhere and he followed them.

And so Dolor a low-ranked junior inspector with no great talent, found himself in a backwater starport tracking rumors of yet another illicit cyber doctor hiding in the hills.

He looked at the miles of backed clay and the decrepit buildings. He choked on some dust. A staggering drunk greeted him with a rude gesture. Certainly if someone did not want to be found, this was the place.

So right away it's a different universe. I'm already defaulting to my 'no rubber mask aliens' rule. If there are aliens (there are) they're mile-long crystal things migrating among the stars, or ancient races believed extinct for a million years, or maybe some monkeys that just learned how to use sticks to get at bone marrow. But no near-human aliens. Near humans are in fact just mutated and adapted humans.

And so it goes. You make your Harry Potter fanfic, change magic to mad science and you've got a whole new universe to chart. Or move the students to America. Or Brazil. And that's how you move to building rather than copying.

This thread has got the juices going. I wanted to get into comic books when I was growing up and I have been drawing a lot again for the last three years. I'm starting to see a lot of reskins in various media including comics. Stuff I didn't notice before or just thought was dumb. But It may not be all that dumb after all.
Today it hit me. I should have some stuff sorted out before the end of the year.
I just need to think on it some more.
It's so obvious. Why didn't it occur to me sooner.

A general question. Do people think there is a place for the "slice of life" genre in the contemporary U.S. publishing market? For those unfamiliar with the term, Slice of life is a realistic representation of everyday experience. Certainly conflicts exist, since conflict drives plot, but they are normal ones such as love triangles, professional rivalries, office politics, pesky relatives and so on. Not battling an egomaniac ancient evil from beyond the bounds of time and space, or a star-hopping 3 parsec long space eggplant that eats g-type stars. It's a genre I've come to prefer in manga, and so I've noticed that's what I've been writing. But while Japan's market has a place for it, I have not seen similar works in the US fantasy/sci-fi market. The closest I've seen would be something that while "earth-shattering" for the main characters and possibly for the city or space habitat in which they live, the rest of the world is unaffected, or only a little. But the conflicts are more dramatic and primarily external. The day to day has no place, except as a side plot to complicate matters for the protagonist.

Honey and Clover is a slice of life manga. It is about five Japanese college students at an art college set in contemporary Japan at the time of writing. The conflicts are personal (man vs. self), academic (man vs society), and romantic (character vs character). I enjoyed it, and am now reading the artist's current series, Sangatsu No Lion which is also slice of life with a bit of the sports genre in it. The protagonist is a 17 year professional shōgi player, so he has the usual challenges a teenage boy would face, but he also has to maintain his professional ranking or improve it. Japanese shōgi at the pro level seems to be based on "get better or get out." At seventeen, he has about 18 years before he has to get out, but it is a highly competitive environment as one would expect. Pros who don't improve tend to drift down to the bottom ranks and get stuck there. That series is ongoing, while Honey and Clover is finished should anyone be interest in reading a slice of life manga.

 Ahtman wrote:
I've thought some about it and as long as it isn't anime based I think it is fine. I mean, a ninja running around in an orange sweater? That is just silly.

Regardless of the silliness and impracticality, the point of the thread it to get a novice writing. The subject matter is not important as long as the objective is accomplished. It is also easier to revise a rough draft, than starting from scratch, so the obvious Naruto elements can be edited out later.

 Ancestral Hamster wrote:
A general question. Do people think there is a place for the "slice of life" genre in the contemporary U.S. publishing market?

Depends.

The traditional publishing market? Likely not. Slice of life is popular in mangas and light novels but in western publishing markets, it's basically non-existent.

The online self-publishing market? Very much so. The Wandering Inn is basically 90% slice of life and is a very popular online serial series. This is a genre that's popular among fans of Anime and Manga fans where it's a more common thing and has a wider market online. That said, it is a very love it/hate it market. People either like slice of life and fluff or they don't, which is why publishers probably don't touch it much in the west (the potential market is too narrow) but online it's easier to find the people who are into that.

That said, the online publishing market is 1) unlikely to make you much money, and 2) extremely judgemental. People will bitch at you for the stupidest gak (including things that are completely their fault because they skimmed and got confused) and because of the nature of the market you're not as well insulated from the audience as a traditionally published author. You're going to see people be complete donkey-caves to you and miss the point and it's going to hurt so know that before going in. As sad as it is to say, the audience is not your friend. They're your customers. I say that as a warning, not to make anyone discouraged. Do not become overly invested in what your audience does or doesn't think about certain things.

They'll turn on you in the most random and unpredictable ways. That's my warning from experience. Don't burn yourself misunderstanding the relationship between the writer and the readers. They're not close personal friends. They don't know you. They're not your enemies, but these aren't people you know in a deep and personal way where they'll forgive your missteps or work with you to overcome problems. They're there because they want something from you.

Places like Scribhub, Wattpad, and Royal Road are willing to try and enjoy Slice of Life, but it's also a saturated market right now so it's hard to break out. At the same time, the margin for 'good' is also not that high so being average in itself can get you further than you'd think. You're not going to get rich though. Funny enough, the most successful online authors I know of did all the work themselves (people like Wildbow) or were already making a name for themselves before many of these website tools took off (Shirtaloon). You can self-publish and find an audience, but you'll have to do a lot of the work a publisher would do yourself (duh). You already seem somewhat familiar with the genre. If you're unfamiliar with the websites like Royal Road, I'd suggest looking around them. Most of these things are structured to funnel people to a patreon account and that becomes the primary source of income for online authors. Many books on Royal Road right now, even mediocre ones, are also being picked up by (not very lucrative for the writer) production studios for audiobooks and some people are doing well with that but I don't know how long it'll last. It is a very saturated market.

There are authors like Raven's Dagger who started out in fanfiction and branched out successfully into original fics (he's also an acquaintance of mine so if you're into LITRPGs try Stray Cat Strut cause I'll plug him here shamelessly this one time XD)

Here's an idea that will give some teachers hives, what about copying?

Not cutting and pasting but retyping and in the process changing anything that should changes. Things like physical descriptions of characters or places is a skill and building that muscle memory and seeing how others have described, I dunno, noses, can develop that skill.

I learned to type by listening to my walkman (remember walkmans?) and typing the lyrics as fast as I could.

What little drawing skill I have came from tracing.

So I wonder if retyping passages might help?

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Here's an idea that will give some teachers hives, what about copying?

Not cutting and pasting but retyping and in the process changing anything that should changes. Things like physical descriptions of characters or places is a skill and building that muscle memory and seeing how others have described, I dunno, noses, can develop that skill.

I learned to type by listening to my walkman (remember walkmans?) and typing the lyrics as fast as I could.

What little drawing skill I have came from tracing.

So I wonder if retyping passages might help?

It might help with learning to type, but when the focus is on copying a person might end up not gaining anything more than what you'd gain by reading material, since a descriptoin from book A might have a very different style and writing voice from a description from book B. So you can't so easily copy bits out of here and there and merge them. It might prove some interest and certainly the more a person reads the more they will absorb and take on board. But I think copywriting would only be teaching them isolated writing mechanics and concepts.

It would probably be like tracing in visual art.

It's something people might do, but it's not all that useful or much of a teaching tool.

The only way to learn to write is to write, and copying frankly isn't writing anymore than tracing is drawing.

Thank you, LordofHats, that was a very helpful post. All those sites you mention are new to me, so I'll check them out. And the warning about the audience I'll heed.

I had thought that the traditional market would be like that, so I had started drafting out a more conventional story. So there will be war, and treason in the protagonist's homeland, and a vengeful ex who can't get over the fact she turned down his marriage proposal all those years ago. I've been reading that one must pile challenge upon challenge upon the protagonist until it looks impossible for them to triumph, but then they do.

Good post Hats.

Remember, you do not write for an audience. You write for yourself, because you have to write; or you can not help yourself from writing things. Of course, this is all helped by having a process and routine for writing, but you get the idea. You write for yourself first, and everyone else second.

Sort of Off Topic, but I am convinced that the reason 95% of small businesses fail in the first five years is not because of finances. I think that is how long it takes the average small business owner to get sick of dealing with their own customers. I say this after running a few small businesses myself.

 Easy E wrote:
Sort of Off Topic, but I am convinced that the reason 95% of small businesses fail in the first five years is not because of finances. I think that is how long it takes the average small business owner to get sick of dealing with their own customers. I say this after running a few small businesses myself.

Ouch! OTOH, having spent most of my working life either in retail or service industries, I can see that. The amount of abuse one gets in those positions, and you still have to smile and be polite. Even when they are at fault, perhaps even engaged in petty fraud and lying through their teeth as well. After getting my first F-bomb, I wanted to push the man down the stairs. Of course, I did not, and passed it to the manager on duty. He did not have a much better time of it, but the abusive visitor left before he could call Security. {This was when I was working museum customer service. We usually get better quality visitors than pure retail, but entitlement is everywhere.}

 Easy E wrote:
Good post Hats.

Remember, you do not write for an audience. You write for yourself, because you have to write; or you can not help yourself from writing things. Of course, this is all helped by having a process and routine for writing, but you get the idea. You write for yourself first, and everyone else second.

There's definitely people who can do it the other way around, but in general I think most people who aren't already published authors probably aren't that kind of writer.

As general advice, if you can't find something you love in what you're writing you're probably not going to write anything.

The first rule of doing any job, is you have to convince yourself the job is worth doing.

 Easy E wrote:

Remember, you do not write for an audience. You write for yourself, because you have to write; or you can not help yourself from writing things. Of course, this is all helped by having a process and routine for writing, but you get the idea. You write for yourself first, and everyone else second.

I'm not so sure it's as cut and dried as that. I mean yeah, sometimes like Athena an idea just bursts from your head fully grown and ready and you just have to let it out.

But if you're only writing for yourself, with no feedback, no goals, you're just keeping a journal.

It's the interaction between the writer and the audience, editors, collaborators, teachers, etc that take you to the next level. Without that you're just wandering the hallways of your own mind.

This is true.

I said what I said less to suggest that the audience is unimportant, and more to warn against mistaking your relationship with the audience for something it's not.

Treat the audience like loyal friends who you can trust to forgive you no matter what, and you will suffer. They're there for what they want. They're capacity to be your experimental monkeys is limited.

Same time, there's something to be said that if you can't find any love for what you're doing you're probably going to be miserable. Maybe you like being popular. Maybe you like making money. Maybe you care more about doing things your own way. You'll end up having different challenges depending. I don't think any of those options is invalid but you really should figure which you are.

The one thing you're likely not is so brilliant that the world is just waiting to see it.

Brilliance is a lie.

There is only time and the capacity to actually produce something.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

 Easy E wrote:

Remember, you do not write for an audience. You write for yourself, because you have to write; or you can not help yourself from writing things. Of course, this is all helped by having a process and routine for writing, but you get the idea. You write for yourself first, and everyone else second.

I'm not so sure it's as cut and dried as that. I mean yeah, sometimes like Athena an idea just bursts from your head fully grown and ready and you just have to let it out.

But if you're only writing for yourself, with no feedback, no goals, you're just keeping a journal.

It's the interaction between the writer and the audience, editors, collaborators, teachers, etc that take you to the next level. Without that you're just wandering the hallways of your own mind.

Sure, but ultimately write what you want to write about.

Do not write because you think there is an "audience" for it. Editors, collaborators, teachers, etc are there to help you write better, but ultimately you are writing because you "have " to write.

It is hard to explain what it means to "have to" write, but it is like a combination of need, desire, want, and filling time.