McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Motivation for a Fellow Writer
blgarver:
--- Quote from: Roaram on September 24, 2008, 08:25:51 PM ---take your friend out to thee 24 hour restaurant of choice, and start off with an open dissusion on the story ideas. yours or his. try to select one idea, and only one, to work through as a joint project. then you can help with the basics, and maybe get a valuable team effort going
--- End quote ---
He has a screenplay in progress at the moment, and I offered to join up with him on it because it is a fanfilm and we both know the universe. We're trying to get festival rights to make the film so we can actually do something with it, but we're in the writing phase now. He didn't really answer me, but it was kind of in the middle of a casual conversation, and I think the topic switched before we really got to talk about it.
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: Roaram on September 24, 2008, 08:25:51 PM ---take your friend out to thee 24 hour restaurant of choice, and start off with an open dissusion on the story ideas. yours or his. try to select one idea, and only one, to work through as a joint project. then you can help with the basics, and maybe get a valuable team effort going
--- End quote ---
A joint project is very often not a good place to start, though. Particularly if yopu turn out to have very different writing habits. The strain of a collaboration not working can easily dmage a friendship.
Roaram:
depends on the friendship, I suppose. but I have been in the situation of having no time to wrtie, and making it a social event help get me focused. it didn't work the first couple times, sure. But eventually it did, and my friend who writes with me now is invaluable. I literally could not do it unless he helped. maybe now I could. maybe. but then? not a chance. I was that guy that had thirty beginings to stories, and could tell you the rest, but never got anything down on paper after chapter two.
my friend works as an editor for me. telling me what wasn't good, what to wrtie next. keeps me focused on actually wrting. plus when we get blocked, we chat about life and girlfriends and what not. and we argue. last night we got yelling mad over a description point that bore no relation to the story and the reader wouldn't notice. but that helps too, in the long run.
I am just saying some of us writer types have a lot of fun day dreaming, and a little push (or out right goading) might be needed to make us pick up a pen. I know I did.
Captain's Honor:
I've been a struggling writer for 20 years. It isn't that I don't have passion for the craft, I love it when I'm in the zone. But it's hard to get there. Life is a major obstacle, so is my attitude about writing sometimes. I wonder how relevant it is, compare myself to some of the greats, like Jim, or get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of work that is already out there.
I wish I had someone who would lean on my gently, but also be my sounding board when things get wound up too tight and my characters are chasing themselves around my head.
And maybe your friend does too. So my best advice to you, is ask you friend what he needs to write and then offer him what support and motivation you can.
blgarver:
After work yesterday I got home and he was all wound up and ready to go to Borders for a few hours of writing. I had been up since 4 that morning, working on my own novel before I had to be at work at 8. I was beat. Felt like I'd been mauled by Jesus or something. But I agreed to go with him, even though I just wanted to sink into my bed and pass out. I didn't want him to decide to stay home because I wasn't going. And I had a few hundred more words in me to put into my novel anyway. So we went. He wrote some, talked about his other projects he wanted to do. I wrote a paragraph or two on my book.
And in the course of our conversations between writing, I think I figured out what the deal is. He is writing this fan script so we can produce it and turn it into a fan film. It's not really something he wants to do. He's just writing it as a favor for our film producer buddies so they can have something to film. Plus it's fanfiction. He is itching to start on his own work, his own novel. So I don't think that the problem is with his passion for writing, it's simply about his interest in WHAT he is writing at the moment.
I may have to have a talk with him about that. I don't want him to burn out his writing engine on something that very likely won't go anywhere when it's finally produced.
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