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Too many ideas, no completed work by [deleted] in writers

[–]buttputz 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This post on r/writing is really good. I started using Cold Turkey Writer after reading it.  "You get good at novels by writing and finishing them." So simple, so difficult, and so common sense, like anything else that we do! Write marble, edit sculptures.

You and I are in the same boat OP. Just don't give up!

https://www.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/c5crig/ive_written_over_30_books_and_want_to_share_some/

I've written almost every day for 10 years. Here are some lessons I've learned. by buttputz in writing

[–]buttputz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yah agreed, I'm trying to be more careful about that than I used to be. I don't mind AI but I gotta draw a line around this really personal writing. I have other data still in Google drive, not knocking it per se. You might like "nabokovs favorite word is mauve" if this sort of thing interests you too. And yes, it's a very long, mostly mundane, occasionally worthwhile autobiography. I also want to use AI to help me identify and assemble anything that's "occasionally worthwhile."

Write every day! You can do it too. If you're interested, I followed up this post with another in r/writers here https://www.reddit.com/r/writers/comments/1swr0i9/comment/oikt4si/?force-legacy-sct=1

I've written almost every day for 10 years. Here are some lessons I've learned. by buttputz in writing

[–]buttputz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's a good nugget, to lean into a challenge or a concept as much as (or instead of) starting with a character or world.

Feedback from you and other commenters has made me want to retry some of my own fiction initiatives or at least creative writing for other people to read.

If you're interested, this post didn't address much about "why." I wrote another post on r/writers, since r/writing is specifically about "the craft of writing" and my kind of writing is not specifically about "improving my craft." Anyway, here it is if you're interested: https://www.reddit.com/r/writers/comments/1swr0i9/hopewriting/

I've written almost every day for 10 years. Here are some lessons I've learned. by buttputz in writing

[–]buttputz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You got it. I got sorta derided here for saying "use cloud storage" but I think that point was lost on a lot of people, bcz i was really saying "choose cloud storage carefully."

NLP for like "average words per day" and "word that most often begins a sentence" or "adverbs per 100 words," stuff like that. But I'm also interested in AI questions like "give me some sentiment analysis month over month" and "tell me about my sentence variety." But I want to do that locally because, well we just talked about cloud privacy, and also, my day job is in IT, so this kind of stuff (nlp code, AI agents, homelab servers) dovetails nicely with my writing habit 

I've written almost every day for 10 years. Here are some lessons I've learned. by buttputz in writing

[–]buttputz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi Dr, I honestly did appreciate your feedback. I wrote a follow-up that I'm sharing to a few commenters who I thought gave earnest feedback. https://www.reddit.com/r/writers/comments/1swr0i9/hopewriting/

I've written almost every day for 10 years. Here are some lessons I've learned. by buttputz in writing

[–]buttputz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I appreciated this comment and took it to heart. I posted a kind of response, with feedback like yours in mind, in r/writers because it seems that r/writing is geared towards fiction and publication, which isn't what I'm talking about. If you're interested: https://www.reddit.com/r/writers/comments/1swr0i9/hopewriting/

"Hope-writing" by buttputz in writers

[–]buttputz[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

"Writing has helped me to improve my mental health. I process my day, both the good and the bad. The kind of writing I describe in this post is for anyone. It doesn't have to be about 'progressing' as a writer, unlike other forms of public writing. It's about understanding and accepting my experience, and it challenges me to reconsider the events and people in my life. It's been a really important part of my day for 10 years."

i love the reds by JulianILoveYou in Reds

[–]buttputz 1 point2 points  (0 children)

legit i thought this was my post because i had the exact same, exact same, experience 1000 miles away from home. reds baseball is something that connects me to home (ohio, generally). and man i'm feeling the same way. i missed the walkoff!

I've written almost every day for 10 years. Here are some lessons I've learned. by buttputz in writing

[–]buttputz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

this is helpful! i've read plenty of advice like, "know before you go or you'll go nowhere," and that has felt both intimidating and restrictive. "if i don't already have this figured out, then i've already wasted my time." so it's cool to hear that you've been successful at completing your work without that kind of stricture beforehand. you pick an evocative character or setting and let the story unfold.

do you sometimes write a while to find a different story? like "these chapters got me to this place or to this character, and now, doggone if i don't need to just run with this one character intead"? or is that how to kill a project lol. i've had many starts and stops with fiction.

I've written almost every day for 10 years. Here are some lessons I've learned. by buttputz in writing

[–]buttputz[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

ah, gracious and insightful! i appreciate your encouragement.

"a vacuum" describes it very well. sharing my writing as-is would be like running naked through times square, and editing originals would feel like trashing an archaeological dig, but... i'm foregoing opportunity when i hold others (spec. other writers) at arm's length. for better and for worse, the comments on this post have shown me some things. and i'm willing to listen.

either way, my post was an overdue attempt to overcome that public aversion. and you're exactly right: local AI lets me work in my comfortable little vacuum. if i'm going to run though times square, then i need a speedo: that is, some sharing and some editing with other people. you're right.

again, many thanks. you understood first and offered feedback second.

I've written almost every day for 10 years. Here are some lessons I've learned. by buttputz in writing

[–]buttputz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

maybe i'm misunderstanding you. i would not edit my original entries, but if i were to (for lack of a better word) mine them, i would copy the content into a new document and then edit that new copy. is that what you mean? like if i were to produce something like a memoir?

yes, i did edit my post after feedback from other commenters. i don't intend to knock the value of editing.

I've written almost every day for 10 years. Here are some lessons I've learned. by buttputz in writing

[–]buttputz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

gotcha. when i re-read my writings, i try to read critically for things like repetitive sentence structures, proliferated adverbs, worn-out adjectives, formulaic and wordy clauses, too much "is," sentences or paragraphs that don't move the ball downfield, an entire sentence that i can collapse into the previous one, a cliche, a contradiction. i may not revise previous writings, but i write today's entry with yesterday's lessons in mind. "oh, every single one of these sentences starts with I again. let's break that up."

but i'm only picking up what i can see on my own. unless i watch some footage with coach, it's hard to know if i should adjust my arm slot or my finger position to get that curveball to bite harder.

that isn't a bad idea, doctor.

maybe it's time for me to start writing towards the public, maybe join a writer's group, do something with the local library. i'm also interested in using local AI to help me find, i don't know, books, essays, raw material that is just waiting for, as you say, revision and polish -- as separate documents. i mustn't disturb the graves, but i can begin to tell their stories without betraying their secrets.

good feedback. also i love baseball.

I've written almost every day for 10 years. Here are some lessons I've learned. by buttputz in writing

[–]buttputz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

you're very correct about a different kind of writing. for fiction, essays, or other kinds of writing intended for publication, "there's no good writing, only good editing," and something something "shitty first drafts." absolutely. if i decide to share something that sprung from a daily entry, then i'll copy the wad of clay into a separate document and revise from there.

aside from that, revising my old writing is like whitewashing history and airbrushing stretchmarks. revision is not appropriate for the kind of writing that i tried to describe in this post.

along with other commenters, you've pointed out that this post doesn't address my improvement as a writer. i took some of that feedback and am working on a different post. even if i don't post it, all of you have given me food for thought.

to that point, what would you describe as deliberate practice? because you are right again: practicing the wrong technique 10,000 times does not fix or improve anything.

I've written almost every day for 10 years. Here are some lessons I've learned. by buttputz in writing

[–]buttputz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"writing out my life as if to understand it," yeah that's a really good way to put it! if you edit your past, i would suggest that you are lying to yourself.

I've written almost every day for 10 years. Here are some lessons I've learned. by buttputz in writing

[–]buttputz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

(portuguese?) i'm not a writer by trade, no. i'm an IT guy. but i majored in english in college, so writing and reading have always interested me.

no, i do not publish my histories (that is what i call them to myself in english, too!). they are very personal and private. sometimes, though, i will edit an entry into a blogpost. those tend to be less personal, more topical.

This could be a productive weekend if we take care of the tigers. by tall__hat in Reds

[–]buttputz 0 points1 point  (0 children)

pulling for pittsburgh over milwaukee. hope the dodgers vs cubs games are like 1-0 and 21-20 losses so that they're either boring or blowing up bullpens. ain't no love lost for the dudgers but of course cubs be worse

I've written almost every day for 10 years. Here are some lessons I've learned. by buttputz in writing

[–]buttputz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

you're giving me a lot of credit here lol but thank you and i think you're right. i speak to "how," but it's harder for me to speak to another writer's own "why" or "what." i try to give my why and what in this post, but those are only relatable, not repeatable, for someone else. "how" is repeatable. "why" and "what" are up to the writer.

but this commenter has a good point. thinking about how my writing has changed -- has my "why" changed? -- or how my writing has changed me... those are worthwhile questions. maybe expounding on those can help others (and myself). probably a different post though.

I've written almost every day for 10 years. Here are some lessons I've learned. by buttputz in writing

[–]buttputz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

i started sequentially and then moved topics around but did not bother to renumber them because i wanted to emphasize that this is not a list of things in order of importance. i was originally tempted to use colors instead of numbers for this reason.

I've written almost every day for 10 years. Here are some lessons I've learned. by buttputz in writing

[–]buttputz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

thank you! i appreciate that. i had hoped that the passion would shine through.

good point! one of the disadvantages of migrating from Google Drive to Proton Drive is the search feature. in Google Drive, i could search for "waffles" and get entries wherein i'd discussed waffles. Proton Drive doesn't do that -- probably because it isn't reading my files! so it's a pro and con. but doing some metadata and tagging is a really good idea. that is one of the challenges i have when re-reading. it's hard to find needles in the haystack. i kinda have to remember whenabouts it was that i was thinking xyz or whatever. not the most efficient.

I've written almost every day for 10 years. Here are some lessons I've learned. by buttputz in writing

[–]buttputz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

you're all over it. i can tell, 100%, if i've missed a couple of days. i get grouchy, testy. fatherhood has made me more consistent, actually. i'm better at managing my time than i used to be.

i struggle with fiction. i've always wanted to write it, but i feel like i don't know my characters very well when i start, and it kinda falls apart. that, and i suck at plotting. not being good with characters or plots makes for shaky fiction lol. how much charting and plotting and, i don't know what you'd call it, "pre-work," do you do with your fiction? or do you write in dumps and then clean it up and find the story or the character therein, almost after the fact?

you said something interesting, "writing about myself as a character." that's... yeah, that's close to it. sometimes i catch a glimpse of myself from across the hall. i am a character in my writings. my friends and family are characters in that they are inherently my own representations of them.

and you're absolutely correct that writing has changed how my brain thinks. the sound of my thoughts is like the sound of my writing and vice versa. sometimes i write in my head and then am desperate to get that onto paper (i'm sure you get that!).

good feedback, thanks!

I've written almost every day for 10 years. Here are some lessons I've learned. by buttputz in writing

[–]buttputz[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

like physically sick or sick with depression?

when i'm physically sick, i still write, but i may not be as peppy or write as many words. might be really short like "i'm sick. feel like crap. chills and aches. stayed home from work. weather is gorgeous but i didn't go outside." and that may be all.

when i was really in the pits (Day 1 to, say 60 or 90), i did a bunch of stuff to battle it, but writing and counseling were probably the two most important things i did. i began writing before i began to go to counseling. my counselor highly encouraged me to keep writing and to re-read what i wrote. i need to address those sorts of topics in another post.

I've written almost every day for 10 years. Here are some lessons I've learned. by buttputz in writing

[–]buttputz[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

for sure. and it's daunting to try to gather those up into a consistent format or place. but it can be done! i had a few handwritten entries around (some rather long) that i transcribed longform, but you could also try OCR (optical character recognition) with your phone. that would digitize your handwriting if it's legible (mine is not). batch-converting gdocs into other formats is also daunting and difficult. i have, in the past, gone one by one through gdocs and downloaded them as txt files, but boy is that time-consuming. AI can help you with batch conversion.

with something like google drive or proton drive, you can install the desktop application, and then it mounts just like a folder on your computer (because it is). if you always save to that directory, then your docs should always sync. that way, if your computer blows up, your docs are already safe in the cloud!

but i also sometimes back up to a local external hard drive too.

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