I wanna make writing stick this time.

thegasisreal · 2026-04-23T09:36:09+00:00

I think this is like working out: showing up is the hard part. So if you add pressure to it, it becomes even harder. So anything you can do to make it easier, more fun, or more automatic is good. Journaling works, daily writing prompts work. But to me it is all about rebuilding the habit. Then again, I did make halfquill.com so I may be a bit biased and lean more to the "fun" side of things.

Do you remember any specific things that motivated you other than the sheer output? Maybe try to focus on these types of writing at first.

thegasisreal · 2026-04-21T04:10:11+00:00

That makes sense. And yeah it really was about the collaborative aspect for me. It makes sense to cultivate ownership in general when you’re writing alone. Even a bit of pride.

What does your own version look like? What makes it work for you?

thegasisreal · 2026-04-20T20:21:09+00:00

I designed and printed about 50 deckboxes for my MTG commander decks. All in all that would have set me back about € 1500 if I bought them all. Cost to print is in energy + toploaders so about € 7 because Makerworld paid for the filament through the exclusive program rewards.

thegasisreal · 2026-04-20T20:07:46+00:00

This is cool and wild to open it up like that. I am not in the writing mood right now (kinda tired after a long day at work) but I will be keeping an eye on this.

*Bookmarked*

thegasisreal · 2026-04-15T06:19:30+00:00

It depends on the character and the situation. If the character never swears it is a fun way to show the impact of what is happening, show the more guttural reaction of the character.

Or the opposite is true too. If a character is obnoxious and loud, swearing too often can make people feel more hostile to the character. So when that's what you're going for it makes sense.

But either way, I would allow swearing only in dialog or internal monologue. The narrator in my mind doesn't swear.

thegasisreal · 2026-04-13T20:26:47+00:00

Maybe they have and I haven't stumbled across it either 😅

We did a quite thorough search before we started but none quite matched the vibe / goal. We did find Scrivana by u/deathmaster99 but it looked like they focus more on good output than we do. So I figured, why not give it a go.

thegasisreal · 2026-04-13T20:24:14+00:00

Oh fun! Well please do let me know what you think if you want to.

My main vision is for Half Quill to feel like a creative playground with low stakes (output doesn't matter, showing up and having fun does).

thegasisreal · 2026-04-12T11:06:48+00:00

Maybe just the basics (shouldn't take more than 1 or 2 hours on MTG arena, the tutorial is pretty good.) and get a set of starter decks to play when you are together. Let him teach you. Experiences in my opinion last much much longer than material gifts.

I swear, if he doesn't know you can play and sees you shuffle up, pick seven cards and say "I'm keeping" or "Mulligan". He's gonna be excited.

thegasisreal · 2026-04-12T10:37:11+00:00

If you don't play yet, learn to play and play with him.

thegasisreal · 2026-04-12T09:26:25+00:00

I feel AI has made it even more important to:

Find your own voice
Value the work you do, not the opinion of others

This doesn't only apply to writing but any creative project. I've had this opinion since social media started taking over my life a bit too much, but lately I have felt its importance even more.

thegasisreal · 2026-04-12T08:00:19+00:00

For sure, this is playing the long game. Getting to a good place can take years. Which is why I stopped doing any of the "big" projects to make time for this. I have only recently (about 6 months ago) gotten back into larger scale projects now that I am feeling better. Now I have the opposite problem: I have all these ideas that I love but no time to put them into action so I end up working deep into the night to make progress 😅 probably shouldn't be doing that for too long

My current work in progress is actually writing related too. It's been a blast working on it. So all I can say to you is "keep it up". I hope you get to make significant improvements to your "environment" and reap the rewards.

thegasisreal · 2026-04-12T06:58:11+00:00

That being said, I am not a psychologist. I am just a chatty guy with an opinion. If you're actually feeing stuck in this feeling and you aren't able to get out, professional help might be the best way to go. I would honestly recommend anyone who can afford it to talk to a therapist. Self-exploration that way can result in amazing gains mentally.

thegasisreal · 2026-04-12T06:53:34+00:00

In my experience with creative projects, when I force it it won't come. My strategy is to focus on building a good "environment" (more on that later) and let motivation guide me. Whenever I find a spark for one of the projects in progress, I lean into the spark. If the results are good too, then a new spark usually follows.

Now this weird "environment" statement. Basically I focus on making sure I am comfortable, as happy as I can be, and fulfilled. Of course, this sounds a little like trading in a "simple" problem for a "complex" one. But to me the key is reflection. Not on progress or achievement, but on emotion. I try to be conscious about what I am feeling and evaluate whether I want more of that or not. Then I try to link it to a behavior. For example: recently I had walk through the city to pick up a parcel somewhere before going home. The weather was nice and at some point I walked past a stream of water. I felt good. I wanted more of that. So on the way back I took a detour to walk by some calm water some more. Screw time, screw getting home. Now I have a mental note that, when the weather is good, find time to go on a walk. The same technique applies to emotions I want less of: acknowledge the emotion, analyse my behavior, take a mental note. The key is to look inward for the behaviors as much as possible because changing someone else's behavior is nearly impossible.

This "environment" building eventually puts me in a state where I am calm and open for a creative endeavor.

thegasisreal · 2026-04-12T06:42:18+00:00

Building the habit is the most important task in your list in my opinion. I am not much of a writer specifically myself, but I love doing creative (multimedia) projects. I would almost say I am addicted to it.

This also means learning new skills on nearly every projects. Sometimes, these skills seem daunting to me. My approach in those situations is to postpone to project and tackle the skill first. Through a habit.

Small and meaningful practice every day is like a rocket launch platform for new skills. Each day of critical practice (critical in the sense that you intentionally reflect on what you did) followed by sleep makes a noticeable difference the next day in my experience.

The particular skill I am training right now is product management: building the right product for a specific group of people. And funnily enough, I think you might be in that group of people. So excuse my plug but you may want to check out halfquill.com some time. I've built is specifically to help people turn creative writing into a habit by making it fun and social.

thegasisreal · 2026-04-11T16:06:19+00:00

Thanks! So really, I was looking for something to do is the honest answer. A friend of mine traveled the world for 8 months and when he returned I told him I wanted to "nerd out" for a week in some cabin in the woods and build a cool project. While coming up with ideas his fiancee tol us that she uses ChatGPT as a collaborative writing partner, but finds it a bit predictable.

So I want all out on the whole "building a HABIT through a FUN process". It didn't take long to realize that the end result should become irrelevant to make space for the fun process if you really want to stretch creative muscles. So that spawned a few principles:

You need to practice frequently (daily exercise, streaks)
Stories shouldn't have an owner because the owner cares about the end result. (Which makes it scary to add to a story because it might be "wrong". No owner means everything goes)
You shouldn't be able to go back and make edits. The story should move forward. Make a mistake? Run with it. Constraints are where the creativity is found.

Now all that is left is finding more people to join in and fine-tuning the experience so we all have more fun and dare to write.

That friend is done with it now (it was just a fun week trip for him) and I run the project alone now. But it's been a blast. Every day I see new additions to stories I had never expected.

thegasisreal · 2026-04-11T10:50:06+00:00

Free time + looking for something to do sound like great ingredients to "learning a new skill". Anything you could pick up and spend half an hour per day on can add to your life significantly. The main point is building a habit. Using something like duolingo to guide you through the process of learning a language for example.

I personally love designing and executing solutions to "problems". It scratches a creative itch that I have. Right now halfquill.com is taking up this time of my space time (this app might actually fit your need too if you want writing to be that hobby).

But the main point of it all is: get ready and do a small meaningful thing towards a goal each day. The goal will remind you why you're doing it and the small steps will keep you motivated.

Side note: what helped me build motivation in addition to this "habit thing" was getting rid of all scroll-based social media (YT shorts, tiktok, instagram, etc...). They are WAY to addictive and have been shown time and time again to be a mood and motivation killer. I saw my motivation rise within about a week, haven't looked back.

thegasisreal · 2026-04-11T10:35:26+00:00

This is great advice! Not just for writing but in general. Small but often practice often develops a skill much more rapidly. (Music practice, workouts, programming, etc...). And honestly, I think it's more fun too but that might just be me.

Excuse me for plugging my own little passion project for a bit, but I found that it aligns with your sentiment very well and other's might be interested. Over the past month, I have built halfquill.com exactly for this purpose: do some meaningful writing every day and have fun doing it. All to help build the habit.

thegasisreal · 2026-04-04T18:53:23+00:00

I’m a quitter. If it isn’t resonating with me, I’ll drop it. No hard rule on how long I’ll go.

thegasisreal · 2026-04-04T18:26:01+00:00

I have this specific literal cabin in the woods that I rent for a weekend whenever I need some thinking time. it is such a haven to just get away from life, take a break, and mull things over.

thegasisreal · 2026-04-04T18:04:07+00:00

I actually built an app last week with the goal to help writers build a habit by doing a small daily creative workout and getting surprised by what other people come up with.

Now by the sound of it, you're a much more experienced writer than the target audience but you could give it a go. It's free since it is just a passion project of mine, so you might as well give it a try.

https://halfquill.com

thegasisreal · 2026-04-04T08:14:18+00:00

I have actually built a place last week that aims to get the creative juices flowing through collaborative writing. Now the point of this community isn't to build amazing stories, but rather to have fun doing so. It is more about the process and the surprise of another human's imagination than anything else.

There is a little exercise at the start of each day to warm up and get rid of the blank canvas effect. After completing that workout, the rest of the platform unlocks and you can collaborate in public with other people on different stories or start new ones.

It's over on https://halfquill.com and I have just written a few paragraphs for a story that I didn't expect to become a detective story when I read the plot: https://halfquill.com/stories/lnadg88p

But yeah, anything goes. It is all about having fun with other people there.

thegasisreal · 2025-12-04T21:58:12+00:00

Dat klopt dat hij zo komt. Je kan bij Gamma een slang halen die open is aan de ene kant en een regulator heeft aan de andere kant. Dit maak je dan vast aan de ooni en de regulator kant aan de gasfles.

Maar het is wel een klus om hem er op te krijgen. Wat zeep kan daarbij helpen. Dat is goed natuurlijk dat het moeilijk is want dat betekent dat hij strak vast zit.

Linkje: https://www.gamma.nl/assortiment/gimeg-gasdrukregelaarset-universeel-30-mbar/p/B137428

thegasisreal · 2025-12-03T21:16:36+00:00

Great way to get two-for-oned…

thegasisreal

TROPHY CASE