Do you sometimes write texts that are not meant to be read?

A simple question.

Do comic book sound effects in the Anglo-Saxon futhorc count?

Do you mean read by anyone? Or do you mean read by others?

I do very often write solely for myself. I cannot say that I write anything I do not intend to ever go back and read personally. I keep a journal for myself and myself alone. I write numerous notes and essays for myself as well.

Almost none of my work has ever been intended to be read by anyone else, principally because I cannot take criticism outside of the constructive kind, and I'm not likely to encounter much of that on the internet.

Yeah. Mostly long rambles at myself or small writing exercises of what I saw today.

Porn can often be this. :P

Yep. They mostly stay in my head, but they have generally consistent plot frameworks. Mostly they stay in my head because they're ludicrous ego-stroking or obscenely mushy.

I have a whole prequel that is this.

Two words. Scenery Porn.

I have an entire series/verse that I no longer show to people for feedback. Because they stop talking to me if I show it to them. The content probably has something to do with it

Being told that you make Adolf Eichmann look sympathetic, is not 'good' feedback. It means you've gone too far

Plus, many of my sex scenes are 'heaviliy sanitised' before completion

All of this makes me a little sad, because i'm apparently good at writing nausea fic, but nobody wants to read it

I wrote a whole short novel, mainly to prove to myself I could finish a story and get it on paper. I’ve never let anyone read it. I’d be embarrassed if they did. However, my plan is that if I ever become a famous author I’ll leave my little cousin my first manuscript to publish after I’m dead.

edited 31st Mar '11 7:54:47 AM by HistoryMaker

@annebeache: That sounds badass beyond belief.

Usually, I intend my work to be consumed at some point, excepting certain concept outlines and background material that serve as the kind of hidden scaffolding for the construction of my plots, even in which case I tend to write them as if I'm writing for someone else. It's the soul-baring artistic exhibitionist in me.

All the time, a lot of things I write are really horrible ego-stroking, wish fulfillment cliches, the point with those is to develop prose and attempt to make the characters in it not-horrible. They're for practice.

edited 31st Mar '11 8:46:25 AM by AwayLaughing

Yes. Once I finish venting, I tend to delete them.

I have a first draft of a 217-page novel which I'm going to start editing once my GCS Es are done with, and I'm currently writing plot outlines for a sequel. I haven't shown it to anyone and don't plan to do so anytime soon. There's a total of one scene (the prologue) which anyone has seen: I emailed it to a friend whom I'd asked for some feedback and told her vaguely that it was part of something bigger, so she might not get all of it without the context. That's it. I might come back to it in about ten years, revise it, and decide if it's worth doing anything with, but there's not much point at the moment.

lol yes I actually have at least once.

It was a few random notes that I left in something >>

But that was 30,000 words long, other things, no.

My first drafts are almost nearly never read by anyone unless I want to show them (at least with poems) the INSANE amount of crossed out lines, arrows pointing everywhere to how to remix lines, and other tiny notes that fill the paper. Typically I do not erase anything with a first draft, just draw a line through it in case I change my mind or realize it works. Then I show someone the second draft nicely written, signed, and time stamped to the exact minute I finished writing.

I've tried to start my story, Aether, at least twenty times and failed each time because I had no idea how to tie the beginning to the rest of the story.

You mean story wise? On that end, I usually know even while I'm writing it that the long stretches of exposition are more for me than the actual reader, and therefore that they're going to end up on the chopping block on the first edit. But all of my stories are meant to be read by someone at some point, even if they never get finished enough to actually get shown to anyone.

If you're talking journaling or generally unpublishable stuff, I tend to do that a lot too. It helps me flesh out what I'm thinking, and its nice to rant about things occasionally. Its rare that I go back and read any of that stuff again, though, because it becomes dated and pointless pretty fast, unless I'm looking for something really specific that I can't quite remember.

edited 2nd Apr '11 1:16:30 AM by Dec

I currently have... (racks brain) a short Dwarf Fortress-related story on my family computer, a (n ostensibly) High Octane Nightmare Fuel vampire-related drabble on... some school computer somewhere (God, I hope I deleted it; that thing could kill brain cells), a Pac Man Dark Fic that I wrote during an English class and emailed to myself, a few hastily-put-together comic strips floating somewhere on my hard drive, and bajillions of pages of concept art and worldbuilding notes stashed in the black wormhole of mystery that is my nightstand.

It actually drives me nuts that I do this. I'm afraid to show this crap to anyone because I'm afraid they won't like it, and that means nobody can criticize my work, and that means I'll never know how to improve, which, perversely, means I'll never feel confident enough to show my work to anyone. Feedback loop FTW?

EDIT: Potholed to trope that did not mean what I thought it meant.

edited 2nd Apr '11 12:37:13 AM by superfroggy

I write notes. I write exercises about throwing my characters into situations, just to see how I'd write them. I write sex scenes that aren't always ever intended for anyone else to see.

Define, 'not read' xD I tend to keep all of my scenes tucked on this computer...

I'm guilty of this. I have a few serious projects in the works that I hope to get published, but I also have a few things so outlandish and stupid and unbelievably cliche that I'm not going to show them to anyone else. Is it a bad thing? Probably. Is it fun? Oh my yes.

I've written some pieces that consist of nothing but Gorn for my own sick amusement. (Oh, all the things I could do with kitchen utensils...) How twisted are they? Well, let's just say if my family, IRL-friends, or psychiatrist ever read them, I'd be receiving a lot of counseling.

On the other hand, there are plenty of people here who'd be "Is that all?" Depends on your audience. There are probably places on the internet for gorn-y stories.

Yes