[Discussion] Again looking at burnout and lack in motivation

[Lazaras]

While this topic is posted at a rather thready time in the forum's life, now may be as good as any to try sorting out longstanding mental grimlins.


In short: It's been years since i've written anything of any appreciable length and right at a decade since anythign I've written hasn't immediately engendered a sense of personal disappointment. Intelelctually I know it's silly because if Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey can not only find success when the people in these and other widely panned works act in completely stupid ways.... what excuse do I have?

And yet given how often I've just... butted heads with practically every community I'm part of due to internal cliques and factioning being personally disagreeable, along wit hthe associated loss of rather.... longstanding friends from the latest frakkas?

It just all seems to confirm this notion there is something fundimental I either don't understand, or account for when dealing with people.... and when 'interacting with people' is a large part of storytelling a feeling of failing to understand what your'e doing just....

I'm sure hte problem on a personal level is evadent.


Past my own issues I leave the thread open for others who need a place to commiserate over battering against the wall.

[afrodri]

Sorry to hear that you're burnt out / lacking in motivation. "Battering against the wall" and creating something new is always a tough journey.

[Xenos]

I've found I can only write when I'm in either a manic episode, or in a PTSD episode. Neither are particularly healthy ways to write, and both result in writing that is... decidedly dark. I've used writing as a coping mechanism for so long I don't know how to use it for anything else.

I've started trying to write when I'm in a level state, not in any episodes, and everything is normal (or as normal as can be, when you're neurodivergent, what *is* normal?). It's a struggle.

Music is my solution. Covet/Yvette Young. On repeat. Just looping it over and over.

This post does remind me I need to work on writing some this week. >.<

[Prof Marvel]

I can both sympathasize, empathize, and commiserrate ...


The cliques and etc are unfathomable... Middle-school drama and mutual ego stroking to no effect.
Big turds in a little bowl so to speak.

Thus I generally avoid trying much except lite chitchat anywhere.
In fact there were only three forums where I participated, brass goggles, dao bums, and a cowboy forum.
The only place I see any value these days is brass goggles.

I thought there might be value In Dao bums ( a place supposedly for the discussion of dao, Zen, Buddhism, and various martial practices ) until the draconian boot of the new moderators
Crushed a young but wise practioner/teacher when he dared to chastise his own student for being an ass on the forum! I chatted offline with the mods to no avail, and later when I described the "great unwashed public" as "the great unwashed public" I myself was taken to task. After providing many web pages worth of doco and references to the use of the term and appologising "that they felt wronged" ,  I silently left.

Over on the cowboy forum I only participate in actual history and practical technical discussions such as
"How do I repair the litter on my Italian copy of a prehistoric original so that it functions as designed"?

So BG is the only place where I feel I can discuss things like an adult amongst freinds.
Oh, and adult freinds Do Not have to agree on everything ... We can have civil discourse without
Harsh feelings! This IS part of being an adult..

But I would have thought that there ought to be decent places for literary discourse and honest but gentle critiques and advice?

except I really can't write. So I "don't know" ....

I have so many stories kicking around in my head
but seldom, if ever can I committ them to parchment (so to speak).

oddly, i seem to have a gift of gab and can entertain small live congregations audiences
for periods of time by regaling them with babble about any topic that I have a pssion for.
(now look what you did, Laz, you made me end my sentence in a proposition preposition!)

And My Dear Xenos, i can relate ... the only tale I seem to have been able to put down was this dark thing

http://brassgoggles.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,50778.0.html

it took a really long timeperking in my head and a long time and many edits to write
and i only did it as a purgative to get it out , sort of a exorcism ...

And I don't think it is very good
And it is about as long as I can possibly pull off for a story (as opposed to babbling)

as a result, i really don't have an answer to "writer's block" ....
except I "think" it may be related to any other depression-based block...

perhaps getting angrry and declaring war on the thing might work?

A medicine man once kept bothering his depressed patient until he got really angry.
The patient comlained, and the medicine man replied
"Well now your not depressed anymore are you? I'ld say angry is better than depressed, now you are
motivated to DO something about it instead of just moping around" .

Alternatively, when I try to meditate and either depression monsters or monkey mind monsters appear,
I am afraid my solution is not very monk/priest like....

I have decided to treat these little beasties as tho they are extrernal demons....
I grab the offending little booger by the neck and smash its head against the wall of my meditation cave
Until it stops moving, and then let all evidence of its existence dissolve into nothing.

And get back to my meditation.


i dunno, I am just a babbler not a brain surgeon

yhs
prf mrvl

[afrodri]

I'm so sorry to see that it has been hard to find good, supportive communities. I've been remarkably lucky – the setting I write in (Stars of Empire aka Hive, Queen, and Country) – has a robust discussion group. Over the last 12 years that I've been a part, I think there have only been a handful of times when internecine squabbles were a problem.

Our current project is a catalog (like an old Sears Catalog) for space equipment. It involves a lot of short descriptions and vignettes for individual products, so it's basically a big pile of writing prompts. This really helps for keeping motivated – there are lots of small pieces to take, one at a time.

The list is focused on the particular RPG setting, but I'd invite you to check it out:  https://groups.io/g/Hivequeen/