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It's a fact that on this site among the many fantastic new stories there is an equal or greater number of... not so good stories. To help keep the site standard high, writers challenged and readers interested obviously it is better to have more good stories than bad ones so I was wondering what are people writing now? Have people got any date targets for when they are aiming to publish their stories? Is anyone going through a dry spell creatively?

I'll kick off by saying because of work I haven't written anything particularly decent for nearly a year (my weird Pokemon parody doesn't really count). I'm converting an old story called Magellan: Race into the Great Unknown onto the site which I hope to be able to publish by the end of the month. If people like it enough I've got four more sequels that I could publish.

So what stories are other people working on? What dates do they hope to publish them? What would help motivate people to write more and finish more great stories to share with the site? What do people find useful for inspiring them or helping to improve their writing? What do people find distracts them? Outside Motivational Threads is there anything people can think of that could help motivate and encourage each other to write more? What do people think about creative writing in general?

I wonder these things

I'm mainly working on my story, Quarantined- Hopeful Gloom. I haven't been working on it much due to the lack of spare time. I hope to finish it sometime this year.

I've been working on a short story that's about to hit novelette territory. I'm rather disappointed in myself with how long it's been taking me. But I'd like to try and get this one published in a magazine when I'm finished.

After it's done, I have notes ready for a Historical Fiction Romance CYOA set in either 14th or 15th century England, Scotland, France and Normandy. Though other areas may be explored through branching. Once my current project is finished, I'll do some additional research to determine a specific year the story will start in.

Briar's original idea for a motivational thread was to report directly to another active member of the community on her daily progress of either the current day or day before, depending on active time online. After Cliche Adventures, I was working on another CYOA project that had to be shelved last year due to work. I was doing a similar type of motivation by having a friend text me and demand to hear my daily progress. This worked reasonably well. I managed about 20k-25k words in a two to three week period. (I'm a very slow writer.) But I think it'd work a little better with a member of the community for a CYOA project.

My major WIP right now is really more about familiarizing myself with a few of the advanced editor's tricks and playing around with different ways of structuring pages/rooms than anything else, but I like to think it'll be moderately entertaining for folks once it's out, and it's designed around replayability. I always try to avoid committing to any kind of ETA though, since my time and inspiration for writing tends to vary wildly.

That said, I'm hoping to get at least one, possibly two smaller pieces out before the end of the month. I've figured out that I like to have a couple of these little, thoroughly unambitious stories around that I can just pick up whenever. There's no pressure in writing them and I always feel like I'm making good progress, while with the bigger projects sometimes I feel like I'm just treading water and not actually getting anywhere.

Besides that, there's a big fantasy story and two moderate sized sci-fi ones I started awhile back and keep meaning to pick up again. And then various other ideas and outlines and half ideas, and who knows how many will ever see the light of day. I have some kind of writer's ADD that's always been my biggest hurdle to actually completing anything. 

The Magellan stories I'll be looking forward to, Will, I always do love historical stuff and you're the only one that seems to ever produce it. :)

If you want a proofreader, I'd be happy to offer my services. I kind of want a sneak peak anyway.

Appreciate it! When my main project's complete I'll definitely take you up on that. With all the variables in play, another set of eyes making sure they don't do anything weird will be much appreciated.

Koi Koi - The Hero of Japan!

You play as the nameless Hero, fighting the Samurai of Sendai in the ancient (card) game of Koi Koi, in order to defeat the Demon Lord and save the world.

Setting is based off of the Mythic Nippon campaign that Berka ran before. There's not many choices, as it's a largely linear story that I made as an excuse to try and make a fully functioning card game using the editor (and yes, it's 100% functional, and took a shit ton of coding to do).

I'm almost to the point where I can have people test it out, I'm just really, really lazy, lol.

Woot

I'm working on several stories at once, juggling between Cabin 49, Phantasma and the Odd-yssey. The first one is a bit hard to write on currently but is the most completed, Phantasma is just at the start, the Odd-yssey... 2 pages in. Seriously.

I am currently working on three stories. The first one I started when I first joined this site is about 20 pages so far. It's a story about a woman trying to protect her son during a zombie apocalypse. She manages to find a safe haven for them, but eventually realizes her haven is her prison. The story is called Haven or Hell? I stopped working on that one though when I realized the game I have mind is beyond my current scripting skills. I am slowly adding to it, but it's going to be pretty long. My current project is Site 59: No Escape. For anyone who didn't see it when I briefly had it up for feedback, it's a story about a group of friends that go camping in the woods and become prey to a sinster man's evil scheme. It's currently 38/84 pages. I thinking it will be between 150-200 pages when I'm done. I am hoping to finish it within the next week or two. The last project, Say You'll Haunt Me, is still in the concept phase. It will have two characters telling the story, with one character basically stalking the other through most of it. I mainly have the surprise ending worked out, but not sure at the moment how I am going to write it.

To answer your other questions, creative writing is my passion. It's how I cope with negative things life throws at me. I simply write a better life I can live while writing a story. Idk. I'm weird lol. I keep hitting road blocks in my writing currently, though. I will write for a few days, and then my writer's block creeps back up on me for awhile before I can start again. I think I could overcome this, though, and find the motivation I need to finish my story if I had someone supporting me. I currently have no one supporting me as I finally start writing again after 10 years of severe writer's block. I am excited and happy, and I just wish someone would be like good for you! Instead I have negative people telling me I will never make money from writing or that it's dumb. It's extremely frustrating. Sorry y'all, that was probably TMI but sometimes you just need to vent...

Writing fiction solely to make a profit is generally a way to lead to a miserable existence of a life. Money is nice, but you have to enjoy writing first and foremost. There is plenty of utility to be found in just the intrinsic value and joy of writing and having created something that other people found pleasurable. And who ever said a hobby needs to earn a profit anyway? That's just silly.

Some non-writers have difficulty understanding this concept. Ignore them and continue having fun writing your stories.

This all sounds really exciting, there are some good stories on their way :D I wonder if a thread where people record how many words or pages they've written whenever every few days or so (so they can compare themselves to other writers) would be a good idea? That way people could help motivate each other to continue writing and exchange ideas :)

'Pages' of course can vary so much from story to story, but a general progress thread would be kind of fun to track what everybody's doing. I know in one of the IF sites I'm on people would always keep their sigs updated with numbers of rooms, objects, guesstimates of completion percentages and all that. We could do the same, sort of, in a progress thread with pages and branches. Word count's a little more difficult unless you remember to copy it down as you go, or unless you're keeping a backup in a text file. (Which we all should do, I know, but sometimes easier said than done...)

When any of my current projects are complete, I'm considering making a backup in Twine. I don't know how well it'd handle a larger story, but I get a little leery sometimes of the amount of work we all put into a site none of us have any control over. An offline copy of anything I put major effort into would be a big comforr.

Anyway, if we did do this, I almost definitely promise I probably won't tell constant lies about my word count to make myself look like I'm ahead of the competition.

>.>

<.<

I trusted you more as a humble rabbit. You now have the shifty eyes of a(n) (presumable) elf maiden.

I've always considered a page to be 250-300 words, which seems to be the typical 'standard' for printed material.

I typed Cliche Adventures in a word processor then transferred it. Isn't that what most people do? You can just save your document (or if you split it into different files, multiple documents in a folder) to a flash drive. I didn't bother with USA Capitals - Zombie What-the-Hell-Ever because the script and links took more time than the... I suppose you can call it a 'story.' (I definitely want to re-master that as a full-length sci-fi/edutainment adventure in the future. But Novelette, Historical Fiction Romance, possible short story, and remastering Cliche Adventures with the additional paths are all ahead in the queue. It's going to happen damn'it... just not soon... I suck :( )

What is an "IF" site?

When I was a bunny people kept thinking I was a guy. Now it's definitely clear that I am not only female, but a sexy red-haired elf with a little dragon thing sitting on my head, IRL. I'm glad I was able to clear all that up for everyone. :)    (expect it to change again whenever I can be bothered, I am still on the hunt for the perfect avatar...)

IF is interactive fiction. More specifically, the kind played by typing commands, but in recent years the term has become a fuzzier one that can also refer to games made by dirty Twine users and the kind of lazy, worthless mouthbreathing wastes of oxygen who write CYOAs. *shakes cane angrily at damn kids on lawn and etc*

I used to type everything into Wordpad as I went along but I've gotten really lazy about it. It always turned into such a disorganized mess so fast when the branches started spreading and I never have figured out a practical, readable layout yet.

 

WORDPAD!!??? Who the bloody hell uses Wordpad?

Oh... my computer has that. It's not 'Notepad' and infinitely less worthless. My apologies.

For a CYOA that isn't me just typing the absolute first random thought that comes into my head (this is how Santa came to rule hell, if anyone is wondering. It's also why he desperately needed a condom. Except, I didn't even bother to consider this until I started typing his dialogue) I draw a branching plot tree on a blank sheet of printer paper. Each line gets either a short phrase or a letter/number code above it. This gets linked to another sheet of paper that links each code with the page title and a short description of 'what the hell is going on.' Then in the word processor of, 'Stereotypical White Male,' er, Microsoft Word, I type each page, then boldface the options below it with its code. Every new page gets the corresponding option as a centered title above it in bold with its code. When I want to find a specific page, I 'control f' for the code or the phrase.

In regards to the bunny... bunnies can be female. I think. Otherwise, I'm really confused how they keep trying to overpopulate my flowerbeds and garden. Never really considered a rabbit to be something that screams, 'DUDE.'

I know what you mean, whenever I write a story for this site I write it on Microsoft Word first and then copy and paste it onto the site's pages, do all the links etc. I think that's the best way to do it. I think the red-headed elf-woman is cool, twice as cool as you're actually female and not just a plumber from Wolverhampton who lives elves as some "lady" whose avatar I liked a while ago and was chatting to turned out to be :)

I think a thread where people post weekly updates of what they're working on, how many pages they've written and dates when they think their story might be ready would be really good for helping motivate people to write. All the stories people have spoken about sound amazing and I can't wait to read them :D

 

I think all these stories ideas sound amazing as well! If you guys decide to start a thread for people to post updates on their current works, I would gladly join. I think it sounds awesome! It would be highly motivational for me as I have no other support from anywhere, and I really enjoy writing.

Oh and hi, Will11! I'm Bre, and I'm relatively new to the site. Don't think we've met... sooo HI!

Hi Bre, welcome to the site :) It's a nice and relaxing corner of the Internet so enjoy your time here :)

In fairness, your profile pic was of a guy rabbit. A guy rabbit with a feminine name like Hazel, but a guy rabbit none the less.

There are four projects at the top of my list. In order: Magick Academy, The Devil's Chess, KFSP, and My Little Melody. Release dates? Naw, I don't have a clue. I'd like to get at least one of them finished this year, but I need to get back into the same sort of groove I had when I was regularly pumping out pages for TOW. If I did, I'd be able to measure my progress and make an educated guess. 

A semi-dry spell. I've been overloaded in my personal life and my muse is lethargic on some days, straight-up comatose on others. I've been attempting RPs to help me get back on track, but the people I RP with have been busy.

It would help motivate me more if I could decrease the drama in my life, free up more of my time, and get more time with the people helping me develop MA's cast. I'm still going, though. Slowly. (I'm distracted by work, friends, family, drama, responsibilities, exc. Music helps me focus, though.)

Encourage each other? Friendly rivalries and contests, roleplaying together or co-writing, sharing inspirational sources / tips / reasons they enjoy writing, so on.

Creative writing ... it's a form of self-expression that, for me, feels complete. Honest.

I'm currently working on a horror game called Dawnwood that I hope to have reach the 6/7 length, though I've barely reached forty pages. I have around three stories I want to do, but don't have time to get around. I'm also planning to get started on Achilles III soon enough, but that's a pretty big undertaking. I haven't the slightest clue when I'll publish these, or how to encourage myself or others, though, so I guess I'll just power forward.

PMing Chase to tell him to step it up with the beatings, how's that for 'encouragement'.

I haven't really been writing lately. A semester of creative writing classes ended up taking a bunch of my ideas.

 

I should start writing again, but I don't know where to start. I want to write something short, but almost anything I write turns  into something that I would want to turn into a bigger project. :(

I don't know how many of my stories that I started were supposed to be short, but then I got tons of ideas about the world of them or was engrossed with something that could be expanded upon. I just get over excited.

 

Then of course, I always psyche myself  out too. I give up writing things because I have no confidence in myself as a writer. I can't stand my writing. I almost delete everything in a childish fit of self depreciation and anxiety.

 

Honestly, I'm really a failure as a writer.

This all sounds incredibly familiar to me.

I think I cured myself of some of it recently, as far as this site goes at least, by reading a bunch of the new stories that were popping up and just asking myself what the heck I was stressing over when I could write out a grocery list with more compelling plot and characters then most of what was getting posted on a daily basis. So I finally just bit the bullet and set a timer and told myself I was taking whatever I'd managed to write by the end of it, tying off any loose ends and publishing it.  

I wouldn't necessarily recommend this to everyone, but I felt like I needed drastic measures, and it got a surprisingly good response.

Forcing myself now to take a certain amount of time every night and just sit down and write with no second guessing or going back and obsessively editing and reediting a single paragraph or any of that crap. I still have this tendency to want to throw just too much setting information at the reader and let the story just expand and expand until it turns into a bloated mess, but I'm trying to keep it under control by just forcing myself to focus on the main branch and telling myself once that's done I can look into adding in more wherever it seems like it'll fit. 

I've seen some good examples too of adding in setting lore or other information that isn't strictly necessary to the story as books in a library or conversation topics for an NPC, so I'll likely be taking that approach as well. That way players who are interested enough to want to delve into all that can, but it's not being forced on them.

I'm working on Elementium, which is a high fantasy action thriller following multiple protagonists. I'm working on a teaser which I hope to release in the next few days. The full storygame hopefully should be done by October this year.

Current Project: From Scratch. It's a story that combines a lot of the ideas I jotted down in 'My Notepad' on the site, taking a brilliant but very quirky protagonist and crafting his world so he must constantly survive in his changing environment - first from the city to the wild, then from an apocalyptic mind virus, and finally in the new world with a small group of survivors. 

I have no idea when it will be published, it is currently at 41 written pages (of 75 created so far), but it could easily be 800+ on completion, and I also have to set a game I constructed so that a) there is a clock for the maze within the game b) I can make certain events happen in that maze based on the indicated time. I'm sure it can be programmed in the Editor, so the clock is only used for Chapter 2, but I have no idea how, so I have recently switched from working on that chapter (Chapter 2) to Chapter 1. I haven't started on Chapter 3 as I want to have Chapter 1 finished first, so I can base the start of Chapter 3 on the events in Chapter 1. 

I find my story writing is a lot more creative in the later hours of the evening, if I try to write during the day I usually end up with Writer's Block, or just don't feel like writing the story. 

Probably the most motivating thing about creative writing is knowing you have made something special, and that people really liked it. Also creative writing is an area where I struggled in the past because I was always writing to what I thought other people expected, so it is fantastic to just write freely. I think having people following your progress on what you write helps one continue with the project. 

Everything is distracting, when you are busy with life it is hard to find time for the writing. I find it a lot easier to write when there is no noise, otherwise the language doesn't flow as well. 

I think what would be quite motivating would be to have more frequent writing competitions to encourage people to write on the site. It could be 'Best New Author', 'Best New Love Story', 'Best New Dystopian Story', 'Best RPG Game' and so forth. I think for many people there are stories that they start on but lose the motivation to finish and having these competitions with deadlines could help with that. In my case I would love to have one of my storygames featured, but I know from reading the other featured games that a lot of work is needed to achieve that.

In general I think creative writing is a labour of love, you do it not for some extrinsic reward but because you are passionate about it and about your plot, concept and characters.  

 

 

I do wish the good stories were kept more visible so they could get the readers and feedback they deserve. Either more categories, or something like 'Top Stories from the last 6 months'.  Right now it's not enough that a new story be good, even as good as the other top rated stories in that category. It has to be significantly better, to the point that everyone can agree to give one of the other top stories the boot to make room for it. My main wish for a change to the site is that every category would have a list of featured stories it randomly picks from every time the page is loaded, like the Top Rated section or the ones on the front page already do. 

Contests can be a good motivator too, I wouldn't mind seeing a few around here. On the writing site I was originally a member of (just for regular stories or poetry) it was set up so members could host their own, set up voting booths and all that and award points from their account or from a general pool if they charged an entry fee. And the points having more of a function on the site made it all even more popular.  The site itself would run contests giving out Amazon gift cards pretty regularly too.

So what I'm trying to say here is mods, open up your wallets and... lol, okay no, but just setting up the occasional themed contest would be a nice way to motivate anyone needing inspiration. Infinite Story has one going on now, they run it every year with the previous winner picking the theme, and I've always thought it's be interesting to have something like that here. 

Of course, too many contests can have the opposite effect desired, where people are always putting aside their current projects to scramble to get ones for the contests done before the deadline and winding up not finishing either...but with the community this size it seems like one or two a year would keep things interesting without being overwhelming.

I think the new layout has a thing going where all stories can be organized by their rating, among other things, but I don't know how that's coming along.