Writing thoughts
So, I have deep and upset thoughts about the way the election went which I am going to put into a post at some point in the near future, but first here are some deep and upset thoughts about my rather lacklustre writing career.
Okay, here's a disclosure for you...
* I have never finished an original story that wasn't either witless juvenilia or Harry Potter and, er ... what I now realise (although didn't in 1993) must have been Doctor Who fanfiction.
Here's another one...
* These days I get paid to write 'news' about people who sell computers for a living, and it is hands down the most uninspiring shit and I am not enjoying myself in the process.
The annoying thing about being paid to write is, I have found, that after a hard day trying in vain to make my work sound interesting, I come home and the last thing I really feel like doing is writing anything. So yeah, there's a wee motivation problem to contend with.
I absolutely know - and I try and say this with as little ego as possible - that I am a fucking good writer and could get published with the right book and the right level of application, and so maybe I'd still be writing about computing but at least then I'd know I was capable of something better than that.
So, the problem I wanted to ask for your thoughts on is that I find I have these ideas bouncing around my head but I can't resolve them into anything. There are a few concepts and situations that I would like to put a character in, but no plot, no story to tie it into. I can't get my head around how actual authors figure out how to bring these vague ideas into a convincing story, with subtext and everything. How is that level of thought possible? How is it done?
Okay, here's a disclosure for you...
* I have never finished an original story that wasn't either witless juvenilia or Harry Potter and, er ... what I now realise (although didn't in 1993) must have been Doctor Who fanfiction.
Here's another one...
* These days I get paid to write 'news' about people who sell computers for a living, and it is hands down the most uninspiring shit and I am not enjoying myself in the process.
The annoying thing about being paid to write is, I have found, that after a hard day trying in vain to make my work sound interesting, I come home and the last thing I really feel like doing is writing anything. So yeah, there's a wee motivation problem to contend with.
I absolutely know - and I try and say this with as little ego as possible - that I am a fucking good writer and could get published with the right book and the right level of application, and so maybe I'd still be writing about computing but at least then I'd know I was capable of something better than that.
So, the problem I wanted to ask for your thoughts on is that I find I have these ideas bouncing around my head but I can't resolve them into anything. There are a few concepts and situations that I would like to put a character in, but no plot, no story to tie it into. I can't get my head around how actual authors figure out how to bring these vague ideas into a convincing story, with subtext and everything. How is that level of thought possible? How is it done?