Pantsing and Stripping Forums

librarian wrote: ↑Tue Jan 25, 2022 7:49 pm For content though: One of the biggest issues I face is motivation. I have a few things I can do to clear my head and get focused but how about you? Do you have any rituals or habits you do to get in the mood for writing?

I guess this question is open to everyone too. :3

My answer to that question is extremely unusual. To put it simply, I am ALWAYS mentally stuck in my own fantasy worlds, pretty much all day every day. I've been like that since kindergarten. It's not just my ENF works, I have all sorts of characters and adventures running around in my head. I don't focus well in the real world since my mind is constantly running scenes and conversations between characters. When I'm alone at work I have complete conversations with myself or with inanimate objects, actually interacting with the responses that my writer brain comes up with for the other parties. You've no idea how many people in my life think I'm crazy, but the insanity is just part of my roguish charm. I also have the ability to mentally shift out of myself and shift fully into character, thinking/acting/talking like they do. I made that a plot point in Jessica Christ and Sophie DNIS by giving the protagonists the ability to do this as well, because I find it interesting to explore the trailblazing possibilities of that power. I have very recently learned that this is actually considered a mental disorder called maladaptive daydreaming and that experts say it's bad for you and highly addictive. Oops!

So for me, weaving the story is easy, fun, and basically second nature. I can orally tell stories or act scenes out effortlessly, I can improvise an entire saga on the fly, and I am fully capable of playing every character in a multi-character scene without difficulty. The hard part, the part that kicks my ass and slows me down, is the physical WRITING of the stories. That part is the grind. If I ever get the money to hire a ghostwriter you guys are going to see more stories than a skyscraper.

In order to motivate myself to actually sit down and type stuff out I have to activate my mental triggers which I have programmed into me for that purpose. Long story short, the human brain works both ways with associations and I abuse this to my benefit. For example, when writing for the Thirst Games I require loud battle music that fits with the specific combat style going on. When writing the Hitchhiker's Guide I used sci-fi music. The music choice has to fit the feeling of what I'm doing, which can sometimes take me a few minutes of trial and error before I find the correct feeling. Use of music in the background assists me in drowning out reality entirely, because I no longer hear the outside world and my imagination is unshackled. So, by playing the music that fits with where my mind is trapped at the moment, it motivates me to physically start writing the scene that my mind keeps replaying over and over again so that my mind can finally move forward in time. Until I do that, I'm basically Dr Strange witnessing 14,000,605 alternate versions of a scene back to back.

tl;dr: I'm crazy and I weaponize my own insanity to motivate myself to create something tangible and not just living in my head. I don't know if this information is even remotely useful for anyone else, but there ya go.