Writer's Block Daily

Except the debate hadn't spiraled down into personal insults, and plenty of debates end civilly without ever doing so (yes, even on the Internet). So I find that justification absurd.

Along with Tera, I too want to know what you meant by "all stories are adventures". I was thinking Jane Austen's works myself; to call Pride and Prejudice an adventure novel would be stretching the term to uselessness. Defend the point or concede it, but don't try to say that we're using it to attack you personally.

Oh well, on to the random non-sequiter thought I initially came here to post, I suppose.

I find myself once again having to put down a "clever" idea when I realized it wasn't actually good. Well, in honesty, this particular idea wasn't even clever. But that's beside the abstract point: there exist ideas that are truly very clever, genuinely play with audience expectations in surprising ways, and are nonetheless utterly idiotic from the perspective of writing anything worth the effort of reading. The precise location of the line is partially a matter of taste, but I'd wager everyone has it.

The trick is finding out where it is. At least for me, it's pretty unforgiving — I'd personally say "most of Undertale", but that's "just, like, [my] opinion, man". Several of my friends, men and women of generally excellent taste and intellect, would disagree politely but very firmly. Likewise, it's not even a neat, linear, sliding scale, but one dotted with exceptions and variables. For example, one of those aforementioned friends thinks I'm nuts for liking The Stanley Parable.

EDIT: I'll happily go into further detail or whatnot, but expect some delay. I just realized I am very close to being quite late for something in meatspace.

edited 29th May '16 4:43:12 PM by KillerClowns

Yeah, exactly: Most of Undertale is almost the complete opposite of how you're "supposed" to write, a game, but because Toby stuck so hard to the laws of cause and effect.

Well, I consider "the one story" to be about life in general, which is why it has all these plot twists and turns - because the only reason it doesn't make sense for most people is because they're trying to look at it from the POV of certain people being the good guys and the bad guys.

(This will be long, but I hope it'll explain what I think. Sorry, but it's unedited, so it's long and rambling. I have to go to work soon.)

And like creating anything - there is only so much matter on Earth, all stories are created from something on Earth rearranged and messed with in increasingly complex ways. So while we've developed genres, etc., it's like music: There's still only twelve notes, just all different ways and places to make them.

And music sounds much better when people study that instead of "The Beatles made the notes this way" and hoping they just trip over a good band. Because that's why so many people tried to imitate them and we just end up with so many poor copies of famous bands, because most of them didn't see why they were actually good.

Again, I might be being too meta, but I actually think that - since reality and fantasy are just part of one continuum - this leads to the honestly kind of dangerous (to writers) belief that their favorite writers are Jesus and their stories are magic. Because, of course, they're not going to even TRY to figure it out as well and write as well: that's blaspheming God.

And of course - just my personal way of putting it, not a literal truth - God always disappoints you because not even God is God. So of course, he'll write one book slightly the wrong way, there's Fan Dumb, people arguing over Word of God, and you get situations like Misery IRL: incredibly rare, but mostly because writers know how to stop them before it starts. "God disappointed you, KILL GOD, FIND NEW GOD." ...Uh. No, God was never God in the first place.

That's why "creators" who are dicks usually end up in fortified compounds so people don't keep trying to kill them. When you think about it, what's the fucking point if you hate your own fans and can't talk to them or go outside? It's hell, no matter how much money you have, and it's an endless cycle. And it defeats the point of earning money and becoming famous, aside from satisfying "the evil inside you that can never be satisfied." Because that's Satan and he's always hungry. You could have just cut out the middle man, stayed at home, and played video games, but nope. You tried to become God, now you're in a type of hell. For the rest of your life if you're a dictator. But nice "creators," like Warren Buffet, get to live in a normal house around normal people. That's his heaven. Be A creator, not THE creator.

Build a nice, tall building, not the actual tower of Babel, with the same intentions. It'll just fall down, which might have been what the metaphor was. Nothing can support that much weight.

That's how I can be an atheist, but still realize most Christians are nice and the Bible's probably just a horribly convoluted metaphor for a very nice worldview everyone forgot the actual meaning of a while ago.

Which is why I believe writing advice as a whole is a continuum too, people just see small bits of it. "Don't use semicolons ever, at all, ever, or you should be shot." Really? Because I've found they're the only good way to separate lists containing groups of comma'd

Really? I think the only consistent thing you can learn from all religions is "Try to be wise. But don't try to become God. Or else you find out no amount of money and power makes you happy, you have to lock yourself in your house surrounded by gun turrets, because so many people want to kill you because they either love you or hate you so much. And no matter how rich you are, that's hell. No point in being famous if you never talk to anyone: it's a bit self-defeating, when you think about it.

I've found the only writing style that universally makes sense is: Find your story's actual plot, decide on the mood and internal consistency, and keep narrowing it down until you're writing only your story and naturally cutting out all the parts that aren't your story. As long as you stick to being aware of the scene's mood and emphasizing it, you'll figure out how to heighten the mood, with practice.

And if the conversation had gone down its original path, I don't think I would've been able to explain all this, because with THAT PARTICULAR TROPER, not everyone else, it would have turned into a thread-killing exchange of "YOU'RE JUST A FUCKIN' DICK." "No, dude. I see things differently, stop treating me like Hitler." "WELL STOP LITERALLY BEING HITLER" like it does over and over in Real Life.

I just always find it more interesting to think in concepts then find the words to express them, rather than the other way around. Doing it the other way around sounds like - tying into another piece of advice - going back in history to cause your own birth. It's impossible unless it somehow happens by accident, you can't keep that up and you'll only write one good story instead of having them forever and changing all the time like Neil Gaiman or Christopher Nolan. I think this is because British people are raised FAR, FAR more than Americans to look at things and see Gray, because they don't have the gung ho Kill Em All Cowboy Cop culture that says "FUCKING BLACK OR WHITE DUDE. PICK ONE OR DIE LIKE THE INDIANS."

That sounds dark, but Americans definitely aren't evil: that's just the mentality that was good for expanding across a country and reproducing all over it at once. But that's done now, and we need a new one. I think social justice and political correctness ARE those new ones, just no one's figured out how to do them right yet. Because of the American Cowboy Cop mentality. I don't run across many angry and hateful "SJW's" from any other place on Earth.

And when you're impartial, you actually make judgments. "OK, we'll get rid of that, but there are no actual drawbacks to LGBT rights, so we'll just give them all of those. No, they don't fuck kids, that's pedophiles. Some are both, but so are some of everyone. Except priests. They're so moral, I guess none of them must be..."

Misinterpreting that and trying to come up with the wrong worldview leads to, "well, we heard these people are evil, and black is evil ColorSymbolism, he literally IS black.... Death penalty." Because nothing in life is EVER, EVER "hero vs. villain," no matter how straightforward it seems. You put someone to death because you can tell they're the kind of person who just loves killing and will continue to do it if you don't. Not for revenge. Not for any other reason, in my opinion.

Not yelling at anyone, just emphasis, and my personal opinion: HERO VS. VILLAIN STORIES ARE THE MOST BORING KIND, BECAUSE NOTHING IN THE UNIVERSE WORKS LIKE THAT ON A LARGE SCALE. You're not "Born the hero and die the villain," you were always both and you never realized it. You saved a kid yesterday and accidentally ran over one today. Just admit it, because then you can accept it and figure out where to go from there instead of defending your ego.

The only way to win an argument is to speak directly to someone's prejudices instead of the stereotypes. You can't talk to an abstract, it can't hear you. So you try, you do it too well, you cut them too deep and "YOU DICK, YOU DICK, YOU FUCKING DICK..." And then you need to explain why you don't like that happening and you want to reframe the debate. Again, not a bad thing.

In short, I think fiction and reality are one and the same because they so freely inspire each other over a long enough timeline. So try to look at what you want to inspire and write stories around that, instead of the other way around, so you can keep that in mind while you're writing it instead of just tripping over it.

This is my actual point, I've just been mixing it up, but all my advice is based on that.

And it doesn't take me long to write because I spend my spare time practicing constructing arguments until it's second nature. Not pretending to be a genius, it's just fun for me that way. To find Inherently Funny Words instead of having to drive myself crazy thinking about these things, because I have a worldview that lets me accept them all at once: Anti-Nihilism.

So it's very hard to argue against. People just go angrishy with rage unless you change the argument to something nicer. I learned that the hard way, by losing friends and relationships over and over.

edited 29th May '16 7:09:17 PM by Wheezy

The problem with that argument is that in doing so, you've stretched "adventure" so far that it's lost its meaning. The whole point of characterizing something as an "adventure" story is to separate it out from other kinds that don't involve leaving home, having exciting and frequently violent things happen to you, meeting new people, growing in response to them, et cetera. Trying to use "adventure" to describe all narratives robs the term of precision and hence usefulness. We already have the word "story" for that, with the implication that it involves (human) narrative thinking and the human condition.

You're wandering onto rather crumbly ground there. Fictions are constructed, be they stories or worldviews, and there is plenty of room for debate between them—how they interlock or conflict or how they drive the way people think. As was elegantly and hilariously pointed out in the Sokal hoax, reality is different. Narrative logic—or what makes a good story—should not be confused with actual logic. We humans may be a lot more inclined to think narratively than to think logically, but the laws of physical science or indeed even many social sciences don't follow neat narratives.

And finally, a word on debates? When I contradict you on a point, do me the courtesy of assuming good faith, please. If you put up a statement or a chain of logic and I see problems in it, I'm going to be inclined to question it, but that doesn't imply that I'm interested in launching personal attacks against you. In this case I'm seeing some very weak arguments being used that end up undermining your conclusions, which will of course draw comment. You're not the only one here with an interest in debate. To defend, to concede, to drop the matter entirely, all of that is fair. To imply that I'm somehow treating you unfairly by attacking your logic? No.

edited 29th May '16 6:49:30 PM by SabresEdge

So when you said "all stories are adventure stories", what you really meant was "all stories are stories about life"? If so, you could've just said that to begin with. Words have baggage.

Yes, but it took me a while to come up with that argument. Everything I've posted in this thread, I'm going use to refine my case for that and use it in other places, so none of this time was wasted at all. It'll just be broken up into various article concepts than expanded on in whole different directions.

Have you ever heard of a famous comedian "testing their jokes" at an open mic? Or "never using the same set for more than a year at a time?" Both of those were the rules George Carlin did and Louis CK lived by, which is why I realized - oh yeah, even if I don't like their current direction, at least it kept changing.

I take tons of inspiration from stand-ups, because I think they write like fiction writers should: they come up with the concepts, learn stuff like comedic timing until it's second nature. memorize as much of the routine as they can, and improvise the exact wording while basically hypnotizing the audience en masse with timing and voicing, because that's what actually made it funny. Because I found that fascinating - it looked like literal magic - so I wanted to know how they did it so I could use it in my writing. Because it is. I touched on that in a comic script, through metaphor: magic is just anything we don't know how to explain yet.

We can't shoot fire out of our hands because no one's figured out how to put flamethrowers into out hands: and if they ever do and cover it with a flameproof skin-like substance... We can shoot fire out of our hands. If it's a realistic world. Which is how you arrive at the Magical Realism "genre" without trying to write a "genre." Or if it's a "soft magical world," like in a kids' cartoon - Fuck it, let's all shoot fire out of out hands, as long as we follow Magic A Is Magic A, because that's just another name for "internal consistency," the number one rule of writing. Everyone shoots fire out of their hands because they've always been able to do that and always will. This is why it makes me want to put my head through a wall when Tropers ask "how do I write genre X."

YYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOU DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON'T. JUST LEARN AS MANY TROPES AS YOU CAN - WE HAVE NAMES FOR THEM SO IT'S EASY TO REMEMBER - WRITE YOUR STORY FROM AN OUTLINE AND FIND WHAT TROPES FIT IT LATER.

But I can't just say that, I look like a cock. So we work up to it. Like now. And then maybe people will read it and remember it instead of just dismissing me and banning me because I'm being a cock.

See, I'm not trying to BEAT YOU, just to refine my arguing style so it gets better and I can prove my points better, and I don't want to spin the thread off into an argument about Bible minutae, because I don't know it, because I'm an Atheist, so I tried to boil down the concept, and the argument would just go in circles. "I DON'T KNOW." "WHY THE HELL NOT" "BECAUSE I DON'T, I ONLY LOOKED AT THE SUMMARIES, IT'S JUST MY OPINION." And just looking at the summaries and found the patterns in them is how I learn things, as I realized. And then I build up from there.

Which is why I was drawn to This Wiki 8 years ago and never left, just kept coming and going. So that's my learning style: I look at summaries, find patterns, memorize them, and work up from there because it's far easier and I can reference everything in a way it still makes sense. I will only read the entire work if it sounds good and it looks good when I start, and if it isn't, I'll watch the parts on Youtube.

And this wiki is how I discovered what it already was, which is why my writing got better almost overnight. Because I didn't know why until recently. So I reframed the argument, and I figured, if you didn't want to talk about writing, it would end, and if you or someone else did, it would go on. No one gets that unless I explain THAT to them, too.

I'm sorry to keep making the argument more and more meta, but I've found that's just the best way to explain it. Which is why I keep having to write disclaimers on top of disclaimers, and I don't enjoy that, TBH..

edited 29th May '16 7:32:43 PM by Wheezy

EDIT: Sleeping on it. Will restore if a response pops up that quotes/references it, though.

edited 29th May '16 10:26:10 PM by KillerClowns

Thanks. All of the advice above could also be boiled down into something like:

"Know what your story is - not the genre, but the theme - before you write it." But I didn't realize that until now.

edited 29th May '16 11:45:08 PM by Wheezy

I am going to die of curiosity. (not literally)

If this was a practice debate for you, I have criticisms.

1. In this format of communication, walls of text are the opposite of effective communication.
2. You went meta. Don't talk about the debate, just do it.
3. Repetition in moderation please. Saying the same things over and over and over and over and over does not strengthen your position. Everything should be said three times. Once in introduction. Once with evidence, examples, and citations. Once in summary. When a person asks a question, clarify only. Do not repeat the original argument, including the clarification.

As you can probably guess, I had a hard time following your argument because of its length.

Again, I'm doing all of this on purpose. I go meta because it misleads people, which causes Cognitive Dissonance (edit: Not the game. We need a page on the idea.), which leads them in the direction you want it to go. Because if it's one person trying to argue with you, they just get confused and leave. It's a "democracy of ideas," a concept that never made it in the US. I write my scripts this way, because... Again, no one genre.

From that, the actual meaning emerges. That's why, instead of two people kicking the shit out of each other on purpose, this thread is still about writing, even though there's an argument in it. Because it's still about the thing you're interested in. I write for multiple purposes at once, and I've been doing this so long that it's second nature now.

Which is why I love Gray-and-Gray Morality in the first place.

In fact, I've written a new Ur Rule and will be basing it off of that:

All ideas are equally important. All ideas are also concepts.

And I've taken everyone's feedback, and now the posts are shorter. It's the same thing, but in different words we all get better, because that's the opposite of how dictatorship works. Because the internet is currently 3 billion segregationist dictators trying to yell at each other.

Because, TBH, the tone is changing... I can get a little cockier and summarize my other point as: "It's no fun just owning people in arguments until they start yelling at you. So if you're going to argue, debate." I think we're done with that one now.

edited 30th May '16 10:10:42 AM by Wheezy

No. It's not cognitive dissonance, it's "What are you trying to say?" That's known as the Chewbacca Defense. If you have something to say, say it. I don't need to know your worldviews.

That is assuming there are no abstract thinkers in your audience. Such people will not experience cognitive dissonance when you go meta.

If you want the debate to go in a particular direction, there is no need to manipulate. Especially if the thread is quiet. You can simply ask. Where are you trying to go, anyway?

In particular, I do not see how your strategy would encourage a democracy of ideas above that of a typical strategy. hmmm... I must applaud you for creativity in coming up with a solution, though.

Whether or not it's coherent to this discussion, you have to admit there's some really good and useful thoughts in Wheezy's above wall of text.

Now that I'm awake enough to try and comment clearly instead of trying to play Trickster Mentor...

Wheezey, mate, you're better than this. What you're doing pisses me off to the point I feel obligated to take time out my life to rant about it instead of playing Stellaris, because I used to do the same thing, it was incredibly stupid, and goddamn do I regret it now. (Heh, I still sometimes do it, see above! None of us are perfect.) Seriously, dude, I abandoned this shitty idea of "cleverly manipulating people by trolling them" when I left 4chan. It never did me a damn thing for me, even though I used to pretend it did. It won't do a damn thing for you, either. You're terrible at it. You are just fucking terrible at it, just as terrible as I was at it. If you were actually good at it, you'd have used it to make you stupid rich. Are you stupid rich? I'm guessing no. So I'm going to ask you this once, because I know you are a decent and honorable person completely capable it: cut this crap out and debate us properly, letting your legitimately very good and interesting ideas stand on their own without embarrassing yourself with any of this faux-clever, Pomo 101 meta bullshit. You can do it. I know you can do it.

edited 30th May '16 8:02:26 AM by KillerClowns

We have gone full circle, which is why I keep telling people just to let me say something I think without trying to argue with me, because it always, always, always ends in Ad Hominems no matter which direction it goes or whether or not it's all metaphors for writing advice. Thanks.

Edit: Also, you're right. I'm horrible at writing and making points. I understand. I don't just see you're being rude and respond in kind, just in a way it's always about writing so we all learn instead of getting banned. If I was good at writing, I might have.... Oh, I don't know, asked anyone who wants to debate me to do so in PM. So sorry I never did that in the first post. I just objectively suck. This is why I'm not rich, I just make enough to write as a full time job. I'll let you know when I'm Sam Walton.

And that was Sarcasm Mode, because everyone always assumes what I'm thinking instead of just reading it and looking at the advice. And you see why it gets ugly.

edited 30th May '16 8:52:58 AM by Wheezy

Ad hominem. You keep using that phrase. It doesn't mean what you think it means.

EDIT: Oh, why not. Lemme highlight one of the examples:

edited 30th May '16 8:43:12 AM by KillerClowns

Edited my last post.

Here's another game, then: Because if you want, I can start repeating myself in all different ways until you hate the very idea of me, because I made my point in the "Bible Metaphor" post. And this was not foreshadowed in that post.

I have no idea what I'm doing, I never write to multiple audiences at once - the intended target and the impartial observer so they both see different things - because I never learned to write subtext.

Because I don't believe Gray-and-Gray Morality is interesting, just Black-and-White Morality. I never realized how to do things right, decide it looked dry, and come up with another way. That's why virtually all the spelling and grammar in my posts is correct except where it's intentionally broken.

Because then we can respond to each other in nastier and nastier ways, but we'll still be exploring how wording changes the apparently-intended meaning, so it's still about writing and we don't both get banhammered.

Yet more Sarcasm Mode in that post, but also a serious idea, because all of it ties back to my other posts on writing. See? Not you, but them. The other people reading this.

edited 30th May '16 9:21:23 AM by Wheezy

So... what is the point of all this? If you really think there's no point to this argument, and you're not enjoying it, why not say, "this is a waste of my time", and do something you'd enjoy? Pour yourself a cup of chamomile tea, go out to the pub for a pint or two, find a grassy spot at a park and meditate, curl up with a good book, play a video game, work on one of your writing projects... if this isn't productive or enjoyable, there are many things under the sun that are.

In my case, I know why I'm here. I feel a certain moral obligation to try and dissuade souls — observers, if nobody else — from thinking they can win arguments with pomo trolling or hurling around "ad hominem". I don't know if I'm doing a good job or not, time will tell that, but it's worth a shot. (Oh, and honestly, late game Stellaris is still kinda laggy. Got time to kill while the CPU calculates space battles.)

edited 30th May '16 9:28:52 AM by KillerClowns

No, it's not to make you stop so we can all go back to talking about writing. I don't not really play PC games, I'm not just writing other stuff while I wait.

And I'm not talking to you but him but her but them but all of them but him but her but also them but mainly you. I'm horrible at misleading people while making my point at the same time, which is what you will never do if you don't learn the basics first. Mostly you but also them but him but her but him but mainly you.

Because this doesn't help us stay on topic, not him but her but you but also them but him but her but all of them but zie but zieself but mainly you. Because it doesn't just subtly remind you of anything, it just shoves it in your face and that's all.

edited 30th May '16 9:47:42 AM by Wheezy

Very well. I shall find other ways to fill the chasm between the launch of an armored torpedo and its arrival upon a Prethyon queen. But know this: you are free to write what you please about writing and its nature. Others are free to disagree, and they shall do so on this very forum, in this very thread. They will want to argue with you about the claims you make. This is the social contract underpinning this place as a public forum. If you do not wish to be argued with, this forum is a waste of your time.

Thank you very much. I did not mention I break all of these things down to the basics and use the basic concepts in other things because words have rhythm and rhythm has its own meaning and rhythm can create a hypnotic effect when combined with meaning even when applied on a meta level by constantly reframing the debate because that's really how hypnosis actually works and people do it wrong, not him but her but him but also doctors but stage magicians but also you.

Quitting was your own idea.

Edit, an hour of silence later, because most people are at work in the US and no one interrupted me:

Also War 877 gets what I'm actually doing, which is why he/she appears humorless on "Open Mic Night."

That's how you speak to multiple audiences at once: you write in a way the meaning is hidden. I've noticed men tend to focus on surface-level wit, because we grew up in a black and white, kill or be killed society. Women, or at least people born women, understand gray, they just pretend to be Black-and-White Morality so men don't mistake them for psychopaths and kick the shit out of them. Oh yeah, you might notice some men still hate women... I wonder why.

Like they did for thousands of years, or else men would suffer cognitive dissonance, mistake them for psychopaths and kick the shit out of them. And that's why men don't find women funny, but shows co-written by both are found funny by everyone who watches them long enough, like Steven Universe, Gravity Falls, and Undertale.

And don't say Undertale isn't a show, and it wasn't co-created by both. Cucumber Quest's creator worked on it with Toby, you know what I'm talking about, and it flows better.

Now do you see what I'm doing? It appears dark, but there's a point behind it. Like Gray-and-Grey Morality is SUPPOSED to do. IF YOU DON'T INTERRUPT IT.

Unfortunately, I can't remember where I read the fact about humor being perceived differently. It was in a book, at a bookstore, two years ago,

And that's the real reason you don't get too insular in your own culture. And why Inception said an idea is the most resilient parasite, and that phrase that just "sounded right," because if you plant one...

And the conclusion is, that's why you don't get too insular into your own culture, ALL TROPERS.

So you start with a concept and use words and tricks to that effect, because you've learned from all over the place, INSTEAD OF DOING IT BACKWARDS.

This is why I love Visual Media and New Media, because you can do that and men and women just choose not to, because they were raised in such wildly different cultures, so they don't like each other's humor, so they don't get each other.

That was a mini-article that I will use somewhere else, because there will be two wildly different audiences, so no one will notice. So it's not a "trick," it's just WRITING TO TWO DIFFERENT AUDIENCES. This is why everyone loves Eddie Izzard, even though his joke delivery's "all wrong." And he had the sense to change into a politician and a runner after he'd realized he'd started sucking at it. Everyone loves Kurt Vonnegut, even though his writing style's weird and everyone hated him at first. They created their own that replicated itself. But in a good way, instead of a Hitlery, Staliny way. So liberals built the cities, so they could be alone, conservatives built the towns, so they could be alone, and that became America. They just made the mistake of forcing inherently liberal-minded people into inherently conservative-minded areas, therefore, American racism was born.

Now do you see what I'm doing, ALL TROPERS? It's literary analysis, but with popular culture. Which is what you get when you mix different cultures, which is why diversity of thought is good.

I'm not a moron, I'm so good at arguing I've decided to do it in a way that makes me look shit at it when you interrupt me, just so it would be a challenge. Then you reach both sides and can teach people. It's a bit like Korosensei in writing.

In other words, writing analysis in a digestible form, because it's re-written from scratch for its audience, from a vague concept.

IT'S LITERARY ANALYSIS WITH POPULAR CULTURE, written in a way you get, instead of insular, inaccessible, thousand-year-old culture. Which is why they were supposed to be teaching it that way, but they forgot over thousands of years of cultural evolution.

So instead of continuing the fight, just think about that. And PM me if you want to say something that won't reframe the argument.

Because I'm not a fucking idiot and I don't like being treated like one, but I see why you're doing it, so I set up a system where you understand that yourself. Like any good therapist.

edited 30th May '16 11:10:28 AM by Wheezy

Wheezy, do you even have a means of judging whether your attempts to subtly educate us work at all? How do you know your method is a good method? Has it perhaps occurred to you at any point that you were wrong to presume that everyone- or even just most people- have the appropriate perspective to be influenced in the proper way by said method?

edited 30th May '16 12:22:38 PM by Gault

Gentlemen, this argument is going nowhere. Let's please get back on topic.

Good luck with that. I can never keep any sort of daily rates up, now matter how hard I try. And lately I have poured all my creativity to D&D, so my other projects have more or less stalled.

But the important thing is that you're enjoying it, right?

Also, I've revised what I think the Bible is a metaphor for, and how I can put it into terms everyone gets. Which is why I'm an atheist, but I think Christianity's moral is great if you look under all the hatred.

1. God is suffering and beauty. In other words: Contradiction.
2. Don't try to become Him. You can't become contradiction itself. You end up as Satan in some form, then He punishes you. (E.g. Tower of Babel story, Jesus himself, Hell itself.)
3. Try hard enough not to become God, you'll eventually end up like God.

It's taken a form that's easier to understand. Because that's how democracy works. Everyone gets angry, they step away for a while, then return when they're not angry anymore, with a fresh perspective. Don't interrupt it.

Also... No I'm not trying to say I'm God. That's just how I personally think it is, because I'm smart enough to know it's filtered through my own biases. Don't nitpick that point apart either, and if you must, do it over PM.

Sorry, back to talking about writing.

edited 30th May '16 4:33:24 PM by Wheezy