I've unironically thought about such an arc myself (though I named it differently in my head). Its a bit of a pipe dream though, ie, its not likely to happen so don't get your hopes up. (Though I guess it would depend what exactly I'm supposed to prove wrong, but even then, how much writing I'm willing to do in the future is up in the air anyways due to irl life factors and personal motivation and whatnot...)

Also the song you've linked is one I've heard a bunch of times via anime amvs (albiet a slightly faster version), so I guess in that regard we seem to be on the same wavelength!

lol :P

I have not ignored it, just haven't gotten around to replying to it.

I'll do it soon though! (That is...I'll record myself reading my post and upload it soon!)

I actually agree that it might help. I posted a yt vid explaining crap to this other forum that I was on a long time ago and got a lot of flak for it, but the fact that I voiced it helped me realize what the problem was more clearly. (Not that I'd want to make it a habit to reply to people on here via voice recordings since that would be really freaking weird but maybe I should try it at least once in the near future)

I guess I could ask then. In your opinion, what's something you think I should make a voice recording to explain/talk about?

If you don't have anything in mind, I could just settle for the "Why do you have issues with the editor?" question you asked in the other thread, but I question if that would be a waste of effort, since I don't think there's anything objectively wrong with the editor. Its just that because I'm not good at writing I personally take issue with having to sort through multiple tabs of pages without any visual indicator to guide me all while having to memorize how it all links together (I've tried making story maps and they only help so much).

Though in regard to that specific issue, I probably just need to settle for writing shorter stories, at least for now anyways.

First things first, this was for the contest.

Secondly I have never taken something that GPT wrote and then claimed it as my own writing and I never will. I'd rather be a bad writer than a dishonest one.

I actually technically already had a description written out (though not of this pic, it was based off of memory and I added a few details myself) but it wasn't very good or detailed (ie it was really bad), to the point that I thought "I should revisit that scene and spice it up more". I figured if I found a pic of the location online and then put it into GPT, then it might point out a detail that I might have overlooked, something to make me go "oh right!" or inspire me in some way. The absolute worst case scenario is I take what GPT wrote and then rewrite it so its my own words instead.

Obviously with the pic credits ran out and less than a day to finish the story, I decided to ask people here instead, knowing full well that it's not the best look for me.

As for filling in the blanks, that was more referring to the scene as a whole, as parts of the description could blend in with things discovered in the location or events happening ect. Plus I could think of something to add in last second since whatever I imagine the location to be is obviously not going to be 1 to 1 with the picture anyways (obviously if you ask anyone for help with writing something they're not going to be able to read your mind, so its more of a "this will be good enough" kind of thing).

As for "pawning my writing process off to others" yeah, I get its not a good look, but, I didn't have much time left so I figured that would excuse it at least a little bit.

Final thing I'll mention. Like I probably mentioned in an earlier post, I used to use GPT a lot but I don't now for obvious reasons, as it became clear to me that while it can write faster it can't write better, its impossible for it to improve while it is possible for me to improve.

However, GPT is what inspired me to take writing seriously again, as the instantaneous feedback was something that hooked me pretty quickly. Do I see the drawbacks of that approach now? Yes, very clearly. But at the time the most I did with stories was imagine them and maybe jot down notes on a paper of important scenes so I wouldn't forget the story later, but I never had the discipline to actually write it all down in a clearly understandable way. Every time I tried I got frustrated and gave up quickly. The most I ever did in regards to productive writing was like 20k (or 50k don't remember) words back when I joined this online book writing group that was supposed to go on for 3 months but 2 weeks in I lost all my motivation and then just gave up again.

Needless to say GPT is also what led me to find this website in the first place...

So if we're to think of GPT as a drug, I've quit it a while ago, but the impulse to relapse is still there and peaks upwards from time to time.

Ok so since you all tagged me 3 times I'll give my crappy on the spot response instead of something actually thought out.

Yes I'm overthinking how to respond to this because I'm also thinking about how to respond to the other posts (which I probably won't respond to most of them in case anyone is wondering), and what do writing wise going forward, and irl stuff.

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Truth be told is that I'm not immediately sure how to respond because this is probably one of the most direct/straight forward questions I've asked people on here. I ran out of credits to describe a pic on GPT, there was a contest going on so I needed to focus on that, so while I was doing that...I could have someone else here give me a description so I wouldn't waste energy/time thinking of one myself. Not to copy paste it but in hopes that someone would give a description that would trigger my mind to fill in the blanks myself.

In other words what I'm asking for here is so blatantly simple that the further justification for why I couldn't just do it myself ends up being really complicated. Its not that I don't get why people are confused. Its just that I can't imagine it being that hard to put two and two together here.

The literal mental explanation might come later, but for now I'll give a bit more context:

The pic is from a video game that I played like over a decade ago, so I have over familiarity with the location it represents. This can make it harder to transfer into a proper "Describe a location with words" mindset. I've noticed in the past it would be easier for me to describe a location if I came up with it on the spot since my imagination would fill in the blanks more easier/quicker/more naturally.

So yeah its not a generated image. lol

I should ask though, what exactly are you confused about? Does the idea that it takes time and energy to come up with a description not make sense or what? Could you elaborate on the confusion a bit more? (I'll give a more in depth explanation later if needed)

Upon further reflection I realize the deadline statement was an emotional reaction due to frantically messing with the editor for multiple hours straight before the contest ended.

In other words the reason I failed is the same as last time, I couldn't adapt to using the editor correctly quickly enough while also being in a neurotic writing state.

I know this is the case because I've entered Youtube contests in the past and did just fine in them, and that required me to actually become fairly decent at video editing, and not to say its the same as writing but there are some overlaps in the overall creative aspect. So I am capable of learning a craft and applying it to a deadline under the right circumstances.

(Now I could explain why the editor here is un-intuitive for someone like me who isn't good at writing compared to something like Premiere Pro, but I get the feeling that's probably not a good idea, so I won't.)

And finally, the problem was not laziness. You cannot look at everything I did last contest and say I was being lazy, it was just incompetence. I keep trying to write this super big story and its clearly a stupid idea for a first contest entry. Heck I even managed to weed out almost every dead link before hitting submit anyways, so if I did manage that and actually remembered to publish then I would have actually submitted something!

Psychological factors can't excuse everything but they do excuse some things. I get that excusing yourself for everything is not always in your best interest but looking at someone else's problem through a blatantly biased lens isn't exactly much better either. You gotta look at the big picture and all of that you know?!

I just wanna say that I really admire the work ethic you accumulated due to failing so many contests in order to, not fail one. I also tried to fully bunker down these last few days, but that's a different story. But during that time I constantly saw you online like, all the damn time!

I'm convinced you stayed up like 3 days in a row to make this happen, cause if you did that's like actually impressive!

Your probably resting now or literately anything besides writing/using this website, and if that's the case then, good job! You deserve it!

I just realized my long ass post didn't actually answer your question so let me do that...

Fun fact about last contest...I actually did publish my story on time! I just didn't submit the link to the thread on time!

I wanted to avoid that this time by having the submit window open in another tab.

I was frantically trying to cut off as many null paths and finish up pahts that could be finished up with as little effort as possible and then it was almost 12 EST so I hit post on the tab I had opened.

As a result I forgot to publish since my mind was more focused on submitting the link to the thread instead of publishing!

Whoops! :P

Can you explain this in more detail?

I'm open to the possibility that I'm "morally failed" in some way plus I'm curious.

If your response is something along the lines of "you need deadlines to prepare yourself for the world" then I'd say that's not completely true.

I saw a yt vid a while back that counters this point (I can link it if you want, its like 4 mins). Granted its the only vid I've seen on the subject but the evidence seemed pretty good to me and correlated with how I felt about last contest. As systems that are predicated on fear are useful, they are flawed, and the best defense is always "its better than most alternatives" and like...sure...but you can make a better system if you really wanted to...that's the caveat.

Granted this is a writing forum on the f**king internet so its naturally going to lean to either being too soft or being too harsh. A whole bunch of years ago I was on this online writing group that went in the other direction and I did even worse there. But as it turns out the world doesn't revolve around writing, nor does intellect (though people usually correlate the two due to words being an effective form of communication). So that's not a good assessment on how well this website is ran under a perfect perspective...perfect in every way mind you...is what I meant when I said that.

If your talking about what I LITERATELY published last contest, it only has two pages in common with it, and that's only by technicality. As one page is completely rehauled and the other didn't even make it in if I didn't remember and on top of that, they were just slapped in in the original version with no context to build up to them. AKA that "story" isn't even a story by any resonable definition.

But since I'm not in a super nerotic state like last time I should probably explain what's going on.

Like I mentioned last time (and I feel people forget this often) I wrote over 100K words for last contest, but didn't edit any of it or put it into the editor. This time I tried to give myself a head start by just submitting the same story again, since I wouldn't be using any of the 20 pages of nonsensical garbage that made it in last time so noone here could prove that I was reusing the same idea aside from saying "Wait a second...why is this about dinosaurs?!". In other words, I didn't write as many words but I put more attention to making the words good, took the time to edit most of the story and streamline certain things and tried to familiarize myself with the editor.

And that still was not good enough! I fell for all the same traps as last time, I just didn't fall for them hard enough.

I didn't just write a shorter story cause...idk...maybe my pride got in the way saying "That's quite a lot of waste of words that you're not using!". But in retrospect I get why that's not a good mindset. I actually quite surprised how few people wanted to read what I wrote last time considering how much I wrote, but now I get it, noone wants to read a lot of crap.

Though I still find it a little bit insulting that some people thought MY ENTIRE STORY was on the same level of what I submitted last time. It really felt like people were judging me based on the narrative created by how bad it is to fail to submit a contest entry on time, rather than actually wanting to know the truth about wtf happened with my story and what it was actually like. BUT I also get that I'm not entitled to be given attention, as most people probably aren't annal about the specifics of what I'm doing anyways. I probably just took it personally that I put in SO MUCH EFFORT last time only for it to feel like everyone hated me as a result, that not a single person seemed to care that my story couldn't come to fruition due to me underestimating how long it takes to get your story uploaded to the editor.

Regarding the first half of that last sentence...I probably fixated on that too much and it definetly messed with my mental this time. Not to the point that I got overtly stressed like last time but I found it really hard to keep myself motivated for any of it really. (Not like Ravenic though, unlike her I at least wrote crap! lol :P And yes I'll explain wtf happened with her story later...)

But now I realize people here don't actually hate me, they just really dislike when I say something annoying or obnoxious.

I actually agree!

I have Ben's contest problem but on steroids! My mind is literately hardwired to not understand how to schedule crap around a deadline. Though the more honest truth is I just really really suck at this.

At least there were no panic attacks this time AND I can write a bit better AND I put WAY more of what I wrote into the editor?!

Eh...I have to take what I can get at this point...

I think I got mad at people here in the past for saying that I'm beyond saving, because it seemed unreasonable, like of course I can improve. The problem is its taking too long. It'll be too long before I can write something that's actually good or questionably competent.

Damn this is sad, but at least its all over now...