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Writing
5 years ago
Sometimes it comes like a clear mountain stream, sometimes it comes like sludge.
Lately I've been struggling with constantly second-guessing the admittedly-little I've been writing. There have been times I've loved writing and felt good about what I was doing, but sadly that has not been the case as of late. Now I just keep thinking how incredibly egotistical you need to be to be a writer, thinking anyone gives a shit about how you can string words and sentences together. It's hard to keep up passion when every few paragraphs you read back and just think "wow, this is shit." I keep telling myself that Enter the Underdim is just a writing exercise — a low-stakes way to explore different interests and just practice putting together a coherent and enjoyable narrative. In this light, I shouldn't be too worried about quality — the whole point is mainly to improve. And yet, I **do** care about quality! I don't want to write badly, and this aversion to writing badly has been strangling my output.
Oddly enough, my takeaway from this has been a newfound respect for the many beginner artists on this website. Browsing FA, you see lots of beautiful, polished pieces of art from seasoned artists. Perfect lineart, shading, colors, etc. But alongside these, you find a whole host of... let's say **less-impressive** art. The quality spectrum of art on this site is quite wide.
While it's easy to see less-good art or read less-good writing and scoff, this is a mindset I've been finding less and less viable as my estimation of my own work drops. Every piece of creative output, no matter how "amateur," someone somewhere spent time and effort to bring from the mind into existence, and then had the courage to post here, alongside the likes of Hun and Maquenda and Trigaroo and other incredible artists. I respect that!
Comparing one's work to that of others can be a valuable source of inspiration and motivation, but it can also be choking. So here's to all the beginner artists out there, moved by inspiration (or, especially on a site like this, horniness) to create, and brave enough to share their work, unconcerned with its comparative quality.
Hopefully soon I'll feel good about what I'm writing again, but until then, all there is to do is keep writing.
Thanks for reading my rant on writing furry porn lol. Regarding Enter the Underdim, I've been making slow but sure progress. I don't have an ETA for the next update, but it will come.
Lately I've been struggling with constantly second-guessing the admittedly-little I've been writing. There have been times I've loved writing and felt good about what I was doing, but sadly that has not been the case as of late. Now I just keep thinking how incredibly egotistical you need to be to be a writer, thinking anyone gives a shit about how you can string words and sentences together. It's hard to keep up passion when every few paragraphs you read back and just think "wow, this is shit." I keep telling myself that Enter the Underdim is just a writing exercise — a low-stakes way to explore different interests and just practice putting together a coherent and enjoyable narrative. In this light, I shouldn't be too worried about quality — the whole point is mainly to improve. And yet, I **do** care about quality! I don't want to write badly, and this aversion to writing badly has been strangling my output.
Oddly enough, my takeaway from this has been a newfound respect for the many beginner artists on this website. Browsing FA, you see lots of beautiful, polished pieces of art from seasoned artists. Perfect lineart, shading, colors, etc. But alongside these, you find a whole host of... let's say **less-impressive** art. The quality spectrum of art on this site is quite wide.
While it's easy to see less-good art or read less-good writing and scoff, this is a mindset I've been finding less and less viable as my estimation of my own work drops. Every piece of creative output, no matter how "amateur," someone somewhere spent time and effort to bring from the mind into existence, and then had the courage to post here, alongside the likes of Hun and Maquenda and Trigaroo and other incredible artists. I respect that!
Comparing one's work to that of others can be a valuable source of inspiration and motivation, but it can also be choking. So here's to all the beginner artists out there, moved by inspiration (or, especially on a site like this, horniness) to create, and brave enough to share their work, unconcerned with its comparative quality.
Hopefully soon I'll feel good about what I'm writing again, but until then, all there is to do is keep writing.
Thanks for reading my rant on writing furry porn lol. Regarding Enter the Underdim, I've been making slow but sure progress. I don't have an ETA for the next update, but it will come.
Regarding the ETUD endings, I mean, it is intended to be a porn game. It may go off the rails at some point, but for now I hope to keep the endings mostly sexual. Like I said, the game is primarily a writing exercise for myself, but I genuinely want to make a CYOA that others enjoy. Posting here, I think I know what my readership's mainly after haha.
Death/non-sexy endings will probably still be very possible, but more as punishment for being a complete dumbass, like trying to cross the Brinebog alone. If the reader is being even somewhat attentive, they **should** be easily avoidable. I want your decisions to feel like they have a bit of gravity.
As for the rest, yeah, balancing perfectionism, flow, getting stuff done etc has honestly been the hardest thing for me to learn. "Drawing" is actually pretty easy to improve at: you just keep doing it, over and over. Mastering the head games so you can and DO keep drawing, without slowing down or getting stuck on stuff that doesn't matter is the challenging part.
The thing I keep coming back to with my own stuff is that iteration drives progress, not immediate striving for quality. I try to make good stuff, obviously, but the longer you spend trying to polish a given piece the further you quickly descend into diminishing returns. Improvement, at least for me, happens faster by working, finishing, starting a new piece, working, finishing etc, rather that pushing really hard to make a given pic amazing. That's why I try to avoid big projects: that iteration cycle takes too long to finish. With something like Underdim you could still do this though: think of each section as its own "project," work them to a level your happy with, and then leave them. LEAVE them. Otherwise you'll be constantly tempted to go back and "tweak" things, and progress will drag and drag.
All that said, sometimes brain jus don think gud either, and you've gotta jostle it from a bunch of angles to get it going again. You'll get it going eventually though.
I definitely feel that what you're saying about drawing applies to writing as well — the hardest part isn't technique, but rather the mental game and determination. I think I will adopt a similar approach to what you suggest: just writing as best as I can, then mainly leaving sections alone (at least for now) once I finish/proofread them. I can often be a bit obsessive when it comes to tweaking, but this is absolutely not a recipe for progress.
Thanks for this :)
Typically the writer's measure of "bad" is far higher than the reader's. It's just a byproduct of analyzing and being self-critical. Honestly just take it easy and don't fuss too much about carving something to perfection, cause all those passages that you look back on and want to erase really don't matter that much to the people reading! With any luck they'll be too busy in their imagination to notice, or even better, fumbling to get their boxers off. That's what I find at least~
And maybe I didn't communicate this well, but yeah, I definitely don't think viewing writing as egotistical is a good or correct perspective, but at least for me it can be a tempting one when I'm feeling down about my work.
And yes, I definitely think that readers can easily overlook some lack of polish, especially in this, erm, genre o.o
Thanks for the encouragement! :)