Writer's Block Daily

Wrote myself a simple Metroidvania map maker in Java for fun. (It doesn't create levels, just maps.) To make rooms work the way I wanted, I had to jury-rig the room class so that instead of the graphics renderer taking the room as a parameter in a method, the room took the graphics renderer as a parameter instead. Kind of backwards, but it worked.

My new computer is so awful it's almost hilarious.

i'm currently working on a fantasy story set in the bayou. anyone else here write a story set in the bayou?

Disney's take on The Princess and the Frog is the only one that comes to mind.

Well, that, and parts of the late great Terry Pratchett's Witches Abroad.

After not writing much all year, and feeling disspirited about upcoming Na No, I think I actually had an inspiration breakthrough on where to go and what to do next for one of my fics. So we'll see how that turns out when Na No starts in two weeks.

Being a student, I, as usual, can't do NaNoWriMo. Again. Ha! Only this time I'm trying to balance school and find a co-op for next semester.

"Oh, yeah, co-ops are a requirement for graduation, but it's so that you can graduate with a job! And all of the companies we work with get that most of you probably have little to no work experience or connections!"

*all of my calls go to voicemail and nobody replies to my emails even to say 'no'*

I hate my life.

My biggest NaNo complications are that I work 35 hours a week at a grocery store (Thanksgiving will be very busy) on top of community theater rehearsals for another 10 hours a week and performances on the 20th and 21st.

Luckily a 100-page screenplay is only about 20,000 words, so that should lessen the stress.

Small irritations of writing: assigning a character a name as a placeholder, with the understanding that should it become unsuitable (as it is in another language and it's not exactly a common name for that gender in said language), it can be swapped out as needed.

Then eventually deciding that, yes, it's time to switch to another name for said character.

Now I have to re-associate the character with her new name in my head (after two years of referring to her with her old name), to say nothing of actually changing the name when it comes time to overhaul the manuscript.

Fortunately I've always preached against the "name must be absolutely perfect" school of thought; the change is a nuisance to me but should have no effect on the story itself.

For the technical part, does your computer know the "find and replace" command? Mental re-wiring is still icky, but on a technical level it only takes a couple seconds to swap out names for most word processors.

It does, which'll help. Maybe not as much as it might seem as I intend to go through my draft with fire and sword anyway.

Happy Back to the Future Day! The future bits of Part II happen today.

And I still want my fusion-powered flying car.

I'll be picking a fresh idea for Na No Wri Mo this year. I have a few stories that I want to get off the ground:

-A young man discovers that a majority of the world's corporations are being controlled by competing alien empires, and as he examines how powerless he is in a conflict between unspeakably advanced alien civilizations.

-After contracting lycanthropy, a young man is crowned king of a werewolf kingdom, and deals with both his new form and the instincts that come with it and the duty of ruling over a supernatural nation.

-The End of the World as We Know It. An impending solar event will disable everyone's higher brain functions for the next 100 years.

edited 21st Oct '15 12:37:17 AM by AbsoluteAge

Anyone ever look at an argument of any sort and read up on its opposing views and still not understand either view? Just as a general thing?

I'm trying to do some TES writing stuff and I can't wrap my head either particular view.

So two of my real-life friends liked my second Facebook promotion on Moonflowers (don't know if they read it, though). No word on Tumblr or the people I pitched the draft to on Inkshares yet. It is a VERY good thing that I'm only uploading a few chapters at a time (as much to keep myself from going insane from formatting as to give myself time to promote).

Two people more than last week, whoo!

Aaaaaaand...I'm getting to the point of my story where editing will likely break me. I am seriously considering skipping the next few chapters to edit others. Hopefully should be okay since it's a side plot (which makes me wonder why the heck I even put it in there in the first place...).

Oh boy, I just found a note on my phone reminding me of my awesome steampunk dream from a few years back:

A notorious thief sneaks onto an airship to get out of the city and unwittingly sleeps with the captain, then starts up a relationship with him over the next month and conveniently leaves out the fact that he has a bounty on his head. (In addition to being cunning as a fox, his appearance is less "infamous criminal" and more "the Boy Next Door grew up.")

When the police put out notices about him and the captain inevitably finds out, the thief explains his extremely complicated life ending with their not-just-one-night stand (seriously, the dream had him talking nonstop for like, five minutes), and the only thing I can remember is the end: “—and it was kind of the best night of my life.”

The captain immediately launches the ship, and they fucking RUN.

SO. MANY. QUESTIONS.

edited 21st Oct '15 2:06:20 PM by Sharysa

I've noticed that dreams seem like amazing story ideas just after you've woken up from one, but later on they just seem silly.

Speaking of which, two weeks ago I had a dream about a boy with telekinetic/psychic powers and traveled a lot with his family (his parents travel a lot, and they taught him how to use his powers?) so he would literally fly places and mess with people, AKA get into fights with warehouse workers and use his cleverness to get into places— which he would take pictures of. He ran a blog detailing his adventures— I think was called "The Adventures of Glenn Rhee".

He went to Hong Kong and Boston from what the dream told me, and I think it took place in some alternate reality in which the world was more eco-friendly as Hong Kong was less dense and more clean, I'd say.

When I woke up I was like "That'd be the fucking best web serial/fictional blog ever."

Now, I'm not so sure. I think I'd have to make a Tumblr or wordpress or something. :P

I have a lot of trouble using my dreams for inspiration, mostly because I only have nightmares and I don't remember them after a while.

Also, I find it easier to use other source material for inspiration.

Like, it's pretty obvious that the creation myth/general story of what I'm working on is inspired by The Elder Scrolls and Zendikar.

edited 21st Oct '15 6:11:00 PM by DarkbloodCarnagefang

Lately I've been writing my dreams into story synopses. Like, maybe I only see the beginning of the story in my dream so as an exercise I'll try to write how I think the story would end. Anyone ever tried that before?

Most of them are just dumb but one of them might show promise, although it'll still be somewhat cliched even if I did. =P

Today is a good writing day—I have one follower on Inkshares! Whoo, time to give his work a courtesy read! *joyful dance*

And THEN my play proposal about Dionysus was so interesting that they apologized for not taking it because they only had one slot and many other strong ideas.

Is it weird that I'm mainly going "WHOOOOO, MY IDEAS MAKE SENSE TO OTHER PEOPLE?"

Because I only expected the courtesy "thanks for pitching your idea" and not a personal "your idea was really cool and we wish we had more slots this year."

Not at all. I remember getting a bunch of warm fuzzies once when we were talking unusual genre combinations, and when I mentioned mine, almost everyone here said that they thought it was a good idea. I mainly write for myself, but that doesn't mean I don't like it when someone sees what I've written or my ideas and goes, "Hey, I like this."

Anyway, congrats. Sounds like the competition was fierce, so it was nice of them to give you that reply.

The festival I pitched it to is pretty famous locally, so yeah! Totally stoked!

I always take away a little inspiration from my dreams when I can remember them, but one time a dream downright handed me a story where I was a James Bond-like secret agent and my partner was a 3-foot Pokemonish creature with a british accent. We took down a corporation of evil technology barons and the CEO's name was Doctor Megalomaniac (or something close!)

edited 22nd Oct '15 10:18:15 PM by AbsoluteAge

I'd read that.