jayfam · 1d
hi jay! don’t know if you experience something similar but what do you do when you want to write but can’t make yourself? it’s such a strange feeling because I want to write and think about it all the time but doing it always seems so daunting even when I have many ideas and ideas that are fleshed out to the end. starting a writing project used to be very thoughtless and for fun for me but now I can’t stop overthinking what’s the point of writing or trying to at all. any advice?
your timing is really funny anon, because rn i'm going through the worst writer's block i've had since... maybe august of last year. i'm right there with you :')
especially recently, i think i've gone through a really intense bout of overthinking too. i stare at my wips and the fics i've posted recently and i can't help thinking "man, does anyone actually want to read this who even cares". my current wips are fics i was really excited to outline and plot out, but after finishing the outline and opening the doc, nowadays i just keep staring at the meagre amount i've written already and feel this overwhelming sense of wow i'm pretty sure no one will give a shit about this. which is frustrating, because i love writing. i want to write all the time too, and i think about writing all the time as well
i think it really depends on why you started writing in the first place. i started writing because no one was really consistently writing the ships i liked, and it felt valuable to contribute to my favourite ships and tags. but since then, now there's dedicated renle writers and more chenle ship writers than ever before and people that are so much better than me posting and i feel so daunted, like i don't really have a place in ficdom anymore. is that dramatic. LOL sorry. but to that point, "holy shit two cakes" you know, there's bound to be people out there that will enjoy your stuff. it's hard not to compare yourself to others, but i think about how some of my favourite fics are really unpopular and not really ships/fics people think about, and i think about how much joy i've gotten reading every single renle/chenle fic i've seen, regardless if it has 500 kudos or 5.
and ultimately, everyone says this but it's true, you have to write for yourself. you have to write because it's a hobby not because you feel a contractual obligation to add to x tag or x ship, you have to write because you like it. find some other writer friends who will glaze you, share your progress with people you trust, just remember ot have fun with it because ultimately writing is supposed to be fun. why isn't writing fun for you? what's the root of your frustrations? take some breathing space to dissect why you've lost motivation, and then work your way through that. let's get through the agonies together anon :)
