Keys of fire, keys of clay...

[BiscuitHammer]

Everyone gets writer's block at some point or other, when the words just won't take shape no matter how much dynamite you use to blast away the mental blockage. Some days where I sit down, I might manage to plink in thirty very unsatisfying words that don't fit. I can sit there and stare and think, I can get up and walk around and come back, I can exercise, or I can try the whole 'write drunk, edit sober' routine, and it just won't help that day or days.

Contrariwise, in the span of one twelve-hour shift, I once pounded out a sixty-thousand word story, and it was fan-freaking-tastic. I didn't even have any Scotch or absinthe in my system, the words were just flowing like Dionysian wine. I wish it was like that all the time.

I thought Covid would actually make the whole writing thing easier, and it had the exact opposite effect for me. I did NOT have more time on my hands, and I did NOT feel more inspired which what time I did manage to scratch out.

Maybe it'll be different with the Monkey Pox, who knows? Thankfully, I'm old enough to have received the smallpox vaccine, so I can just watch the devastation beyond my windows and write about it.

How about y'all? How back and forth and temperamental are you writings jags? And how long do the glorious flushes or the agonizing droughts last?

I'm coming out of a drought. Time to squeeze my buxom muse until her pretty pips squeak...

 

[Winter_Fare]

COVID fucked up my creativity for ages, not just for writing, for everything. Trying to work full time at hospital with the kids always home? Yup. Evening homeschool anyone?

Monkey pox can kiss my crack I can't take any more!

Headspace is necessary for my creative process to function. That is all.

 

[Blind_Justice]

The last two years were fucking Armageddon. I'm pretty sure COVID had nothing to do with it. My lady love and I are already scum of society, living off disability and unemployment benefits. We had nothing to worry about save for looters and the crazies at the supermarket. I was fighting with a handful of agencies about money and the mountains of documents, humiliating doctor appointments and months of agitated waiting while they slooooowly processed my papers (which I of course needed to produce on a tight deadline) ground me down. I developed a bad depression. Insomnia, violent mood swings, lack of appetite, erectile dysfunction, apathy - the whole kaboodle.

I'm amazed I managed to deliver a story for Geek Prideat all last year - without my lady love and some very insistent beta readers, I would not have bothered. I tried three different plot ideas, none worked out the way I expected them to and the fourth, by sheer stubbornness, turned into a story. My lady love and I have had some arguments during our 27-year stint together, but nothing as vicious and nasty as during the creation of "Rotten To The Core". And the worst of it? I didn't get much in the way of new eyeballs, not on "Rotten..." nor any of my other stuff. After celebrating the story's release, the depression came back.

Coming off that ordeal, I nearly threw in the towel and was about to quit writing in favor of a serious drug habit, but again, my lady love suggested I try an extended break and write only if I feel like it. I told my Patrons there wouldn't be much new content forthcoming and it would be okay if they left. A few went their merry way, but many more stayed and one maniac even tripled their contribution. (Still not worthy!) I felt awful because my mammoth project "Mud & Magic" was in its penultimate chapter and despite being down in the dumps, I knew there were people out there waiting for the grand finale. I kept trying to staple sentences together and the more I wrote, the more I felt inadequate. Whatever I came up with felt less than mediocre and unworthy of the cool stuff I've dreamt up before.

So I gave up until LoquiSordidaAdMe asked if I'd be up for a collaboration for this year's Geek Pride Day. He had to do some convincing, but in the end we started to kick about a few ideas, then the first chunks of text were passed between us. We kept it short at first, roughly a thousand words each, but as we found our groove, the individual sections ran longer and longer. I ended up writing my second-ever MMF threesome, a rather nasty one at that. Loqui had to write a futa scene - and he managed to out-futa my wildest fantasies. It was hands-down one of the best writing experiences I had (Loqui said the same) and we even have the title for a possible sequel: Red Tsonia & The Jungles Of Madness.

 

[EarlyMorningLight]

I don't think Covid had any negative impact on my creativity. If anything my creativity over the past two years has been hard to manage for being too rampant.

As far as ebbs and flows, my writing largely goes along with my mood. Writing for me is often about catharsis so it's usually when I'm down in the dumps that I feel the urge to commit something to paper. The worse I feel, the more I write.

I've felt like shit for most of the past two years (bullet listing so it can be skipped with ease) :

• Covid was declared a pandemic the week before my birthday, cancelling the first actual trip away I'd planned in about six years.
• My dog died
• My favorite uncle was diagnosed with lung cancer
• My mother-in-law was diagnosed with colorectal cancer
• My sister-in-law was diagnosed with breast cancer
• My brother-in-law (sis-in-law's husband) was diagnosed with throat cancer.
• A family friend had to move and give up one of her pets (we took it in)
• Favorite uncle died (He saved my life when I was around 12. He found out a guy had approached me at school and the teacher that intervened said I almost left with the guy [I didn't.] So, my uncle had my mom sign some guardianship papers and took me with him to another state for a year. Our last conversation was me thanking him for taking me in because it absolutely changed the course my life was on for the better. I also apologized for all of the flak he got for taking in a pre-teen as a bachelor. Southerners were not kind to either of us even though they knew I was his niece and I had gotten into some trouble back home and needed a fresh start. Seriously, best uncle ever and I miss him every day.)
• Mother-in-law died this April.
• Almost lost another uncle to Covid, he's now dealing with long-Covid symptoms.
• Sister went off the fucking deep end and threatened to kill my mom and my nieces (my sister's kids).
• Sister was released from a psych hold early because she didn't have insurance and my parents couldn't pay 10k+ to keep her for the hold (the police didn't hear the threat or see her with the knife, so she posed no threat in their book)
• Sister got into a physical fight with my oldest niece.
• Niece had a miscarriage.
• Baby cousin shot himself in the face with a gun his mom left in his reach. (He's okay physically. He can never play sports or ride a bike as there's a pretty big piece of bullet lodged near his brain stem that could basically shift at any time and kill him, especially with a sudden blow to the head/neck area, and has some shrapnel surrounding a few major arteries, but he's alive and the only physical damage was a broken jaw, broken teeth and the entry wound. The bullet splintered into shrapnel when it hit his teeth which was littered all through the back of his mouth, some of the shrapnel was removed, some was not as they had a significant shot of driving it further in toward vital areas rather than successfully removing it.)
• Baby cousin being shot was seen by other little cousins who were absolutely traumatized by it. Only one of their parents took the step to get their kid into therapy to process what they saw/experiences.
• Baby cousin's mom did not get in trouble for the gun not being secured, nor for the dozen other guns they had in the house that weren't secured. Police confiscated the gun used but left the higher powered guns there, they are still not secured and everyone acts like that's fine.
• Had two friends die by suicide (one after a standoff with the police.)
• Pissed off my mother by calling out some of the bullshit I grew up with and not letting her brush it off as if it didn't happen. (Also got my dad into hot water when he agreed with my version of events rather than my mom's sanitized versions. Which is funny because some of the events involved my dad being absolutely horrible but he owned up to it and apologized. More people should face their mistakes like that.)
• My mom has been pissed at me since I called her out for enabling my sister's drug addiction.
• Dad started having seizures again for the first time in decades and had to go on oxygen.
• I had to cut a few friends out of my life over some of their beliefs.
• Still going through my mother-in-law's belongings a month after she died.
• I got a horrible case of food poisoning back in February that left me unable to eat much more than applesauce and toast for a few weeks.
• Got extremely sick this past month that resulted in me on my ass in bed for almost a week and a few days I don't even remember.
• And it's highly likely I'm gonna have to move come August. I'm freaking out about it because I'll need around $6k to cover first last and security+pet deposit on a new place and that + moving expenses will wipe out a huge chunk of my savings.

I have a file of over 100 stories written just from the past two years, all but a few are a minimum of 10k words, a few others are 60k+/-ish. Life has been a little difficult, but that oddly works out in my favor as far as creative productivity. Just everything else kinda sucks.

When things get better is likely when I'll hit a creative wall.

Jesus Christ. That’s one hell of a bad run, on top of what sounds like a shitty upbringing And difficult family situation to begin with.

Given the volume of real-world troubles you’ve faced, I know this is going to sound trite, but you’ve channeled your pain into your work so beautifully, especially in “For Some Reason, I Think of Home”, which is one of the most powerful stories I’ve read on Lit.

 

[lovecraft68]

I think 2020 slowed a lot of people down. Yes, you had extra time, well some did, I've worked all the way through and so far still have never tested positive. My wife says its because I could make an illness ill. I'll take it I guess.

But with everything that went on-still going on-there's an oppressive feeling in the air, and people are on their last goddamn nerve and being somewhat sensitive to shall we say intangible things, I can feel it grating on me, so can many others. I published 8 e-books in 2020 my lowest output since I started publishing in 2011.

Granted two were 70K+ but still not much work done considering when I wasn't working I was home as the pool and dart leagues shut down. Last year I published 17 e-books in a good bounce back partly driven by "Okay, enough of this bullshit" and rage writing.

There are people who can write no matter what, nothing slows them down, but I have noticed that type writes mechanically, formulaically, and their stories are just emotionless cut outs. Its like they write from habit, not passion, just an assembly line of words.

People who write with true passion and feeling ebb and flow and there is no rhyme or reason. Times when things are calm and I should be churning it out, I have nothing. Yet when my wife was diagnosed with cancer in between her two surgeries I wrote two 80k horror novels and a few smut e-books. That burst was probably fear and anger driven, but then again I'm more comfortable in chaos for reasons due to how I was raised.

If the topic comes up, like it has now, I respond, but otherwise I've learned the best thing to do is not press, not wonder why today I wrote 30k but the day before I stared at a blank page all night. Just roll with it, and appreciate it when its there, and when its not, know that it will come back. Its kind of like working out, when you're in the zone and feel that burn its an amazing rush, other days you wake up and say "fuck this" and just laze around.