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hms-no-fun · 3 years

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Hello, fairly open-ended but I’m wondering what motivates you to write and create, because honestly I don’t think I’d be able to do what you do.

everyone thinks they couldn't do what the artists they admire do, until they do it. i didn't plan for godfeels to be what it is, i didn't even really understand homestuck all that well when i started it. they always say these things just sorta happen to you sometimes and it's really hard to believe it when everything you make feels like garbage from a dumpster, but it's true.

it's hard to pinpoint what motivates me to write. i've always liked telling stories. i think i decided i wanted to Be A Writer when i was like... 12 or 13? and i just wrote tons of stuff. fanfic, forum roleplays, my own original stuff. most of it's garbage and lost to the sands of time thank god. but when i think back on how i felt when i was writing at the time, it's really not much different from how i feel now. i would get ideas in my head of scenes or dialogue exchanges or get really obsessed with one song that i felt like would go great with a particular moment in a story, all of which are things i still do. i'd get those ideas and build a story around them.

this is gonna be a wild tangent but, i've always been the sicko who played grand theft auto games to do violence. to this day i will spend hours in sandbox games just wandering around blowing stuff up. make of that what you will lmao. anyway years ago i was playing red dead redemption 1 with cheat codes that made you invincible and have infinite ammo. and i was going around blackwater killing everyone. at first it was funny, because your one-hit-kill animations are SO over the top, and of course the cops never stop coming and the town never runs out of innocent bystanders. but after a while it stopped being funny and became really macabre and upsetting. like who is this dead god that is just wiping out a town of people for no reason? why do bullets pass through him, why is he so brutal and merciless? why doesn't he stop? i thought about what it must be like to watch someone do this, which of course called to mind a few choice sections of stephen king's dark tower series (king, fwiw, was a HUGE inspiration to me in my earliest days and up until about 8 years ago i had read almost all of his books).

i kept this rdr murder spree up for, no joke, two hours at least. most of that time i was quite profoundly Not enjoying myself. god i think i may have cried at one point??? not much but just like, somehow the horrifying absurdity of this spectacle was so entrancing and evocative that i couldn't stop. i wanted to see how far i could go before it got to be too much. i can't really say why i did this. besides depression and undiagnosed etc etc. i mean, this is kinda just how i play open world games. i spent months building a pyramid to the skybox in minecraft when i was in college. i 100%'d the ps4 spiderman game (with the exception of time trial shit because i hate time trial shit) despite the fact that i did not like the game very much.

no i haven't been diagnosed with autism, why do you ask? lmao

anyway, this rdr murder spree rattled around in my head for a long time, and eventually i decided to turn it into a story. i think i called it "what happened at arthur's mill" but it never got very far. there were some great images, i had a feeling of a MOOD and a tone, this tragic old god stuck in the wild west, but it wasn't enough to build a story on. so i set it aside like i do for most of my ideas.

then, years later, i started working on a book that i thought of as (i'm so, so sorry) an anime-inspired world war I fantasy novel. this is probably going to be the story i work on after godfeels, actually? anyway this story, "sunset war," involves a series of women trying to cross over an active warzone no-man's-land to go to this remote place to find out why some weird shit is going on with them. and at some point i remembered that arthur's mill story and was like, wait a second, this is PERFECT. so i took that idea and transplanted it into this setting. so this woman, reki, she's a sex worker who spends a night with this Wandering Gunman type who just wants someone to hold him while he cries, and in the morning like thirty lawmen show up to arrest him because he wiped out a wholeass town, and reki tries to defend him only to get shot to death. and the guy basically gives her his immortality and his magic Infinite Ammo Revolvers and tells her to go to [place] for [reasons]. so it’s not a hugely important backstory in a plot sense but it fits in this setting and defines it for me in a way that wasn’t happening before i connected all the right dots.

i share all this because this chain of events is an example of what motivates me to write, whether it's fiction or nonfiction. i love love love connecting dots like this. putting ideas into a soup and seeing what comes out. like you’re building a puzzle over the course of your life out of random pieces you find in the street.

there are so many moments, conversations, encounters in daily life that feel thinner than the rest. they stick out to you as Meaningful in some way. evocative. they're so thin you can practically see through their physical reality into a kind of symbolic superstructure. some people might call that an encounter with God. i like carl sagan's description of it as witnessing the numinous. becoming aware of one's place in the universe. call it whatever you want, rationalize it however, it doesn’t really matter. what matters is the feeling. you cross a street and you see powerlines zigzagging in a certain way against a cloudy sky, and it’s just the right time of day that a bunch of birds are out, and there’s a lull in traffic so you can hear the wind for the first time all day, you can hear everything in the world that isn’t human, and in your gut you know... this is important. this means something.

why is it important? what does it mean? to whom? those are your questions to answer.

i write towards these moments, or at least i try to. sometimes writing feels like that. feels like you’re seeing something real under the fabric of reality. what motivates me to write is the joy of losing myself to the act of writing. the joy of making people see what i see, and the vindication of having them respond the way i wanted them to. and the joy in being surprised by their reactions! i even enjoy being criticized, because it means i have room to improve.

once again this is a situation where i don’t know how to give actually actionable advice, because i’m an insufferable hippie who likes making wavey motions with my hands when i talk about art. but i think that if you can find a way to catch that thinness on the page, even if for an instant, you won’t be able to help yourself. sooner or later you’ll make something that resonates with people. i guess this is another way of saying “be true to yourself” or “write the story you wish existed in the world” or whatever, but even as i agree with those sentiments i find them too specific. all that matters to me is soul. forget three act structure, forget wordcounts, forget genres, forget what’s publishable, forget what you think anyone will read, forget everything. if you can write with soul, it won’t matter whether what you wrote is good. it’ll be yours, and you’ll feel it in your gut that it’s yours. release that thing even if you think it sucks, and then move on to the next thing. do that enough times and eventually you’ll realize that actually you’re pretty good at what you do, and even if it doesn’t pay enough you still really enjoy doing it. eventually you’ll be 32 and realize that all those years you thought you were languishing and wasting time, you were actually building up a skillset. and with that skillset, built as it is around this soul you are writing towards, you realize you can actually be pretty versatile as a writer. and the more you do it, the better it gets. no matter how good it is, somehow it always gets better.

as much as i talk about writing as if it’s a kind of magic, it isn’t magic. at least, no more than kissing your partner is magic. you don’t need motivation to kiss your partner, you just do it because you love them. there is tremendous satisfaction in finishing a puzzle out of pieces you found on the street over the course of years. does there need to be a why? it’s rarely easy, it can be torturous, but that’s true of doing taxes. that’s true of everything. but if you can cut through all of that and get to the soul, get to that thin boundary between reality and a real fiction, you can do anything. that is the well that will keep your crops watered and your family hydrated for years to come. that’s what i believe, anyway.

#writing advice #carl sagan #motivation #writers block #sarahposts

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theoutermenace1986 · 5 years

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I know I said that I would keep this as spoiler free as I possibly could....but I really can't help it in this case.

Endgame wrecked me.

It wrecked me in a lot of ways, but one particular way literally caused me to break down to the point of clinging to my best friend and openly sobbing.

You may think to yourself "Why is some 33 something nerd crying over a fictional character?"

Because Tony Stark was the hero I needed during one of the darkest moments of my life. And Robert Downey Jr - both in portrayal and in his own personal life - actually helped me pull through.

I had suffered some trauma in my youth that never really went away. I'd always been brought up strong, independent, and able to resolve things on my own. I have loving parents, a great sister, and a handful of close friends.

That didn't stop the bullying from my peers from making me feel ugly and worthless.

That didn't stop teachers from telling me I wasn't going anywhere because I was willing to question.

I had people telling me I couldn't - so I did out of spite.

College came. Relationships happened. Adulthood hit. And even when you think that you have it great - that's not always the case. Sometimes shit just happens.

Depression got worse. I felt like I burdened people by talking about my problems, so I clammed up. I started smoking more (mainly in social situations, but still...going through a pack of cloves within a few days isn't a good thing). And when the smoking failed, I turned to alcohol.

I. Hit. Rock. Bottom.

I would go out and just drink to forget everything. Even the good stuff. I just wanted to be numb for a while. And for a while, it felt great.

Until I realized the toll it had on my friends - namely my best friend.

She noticed the self destructive patterns and started getting on my case. I insisted I was fine even when I wasn't. The final straw was when I was so drunk that I couldn't even get into the house. Barely conscious and delirious. My best friend got me into bed and woke me every 2 hours or so just to make sure I was still alive. I couldn't even remember how much I drank let alone what. She drew an ice bath and threw me in.

I was 22 at this point. Having just celebrated my birthday. April 9, 2008.

After a long talk because I admitted to my best friend that I needed help (yes. I was cognizant enough to know I needed help even when I was destroying myself from the inside out and let me tell you .... it is A TERRIBLE FEELING), she suggested finding other hobbies to take up my time as opposed to drinking myself into a stupor or worse.

And wouldn't you know it - I saw the Iron Man trailer while cruising through Facebook.

There was my boy, RDJ, looking amazing as all hell...and playing a superhero. Best of all, he was playing a personal favorite of mine - Tony Stark.

Poetic, right?

So we go to see it. Enjoyed every minute of it. We laughed. We cried. We fell in love with Tony all over again. So much that I immediately decided to get back into cosplay:

I literally built that reactor in my cave of a room with a candy tin, computer wires, electrical tape, and stainless steel coils that I had in a box from my prop making days.

My friends never let me live THAT down.

I had never felt more alive, more happy, and more myself in literally years. I was only a month off the sauce in this pic (and trust me, the next pictures I don't look quite so ill)

It's amazing what motivation will do no matter what the source.

So for the next 11 years I followed the journey. Ups and downs, losses and wins...didn't matter because my boy Tony always got out on top.

Then Endgame happened.

I called it the moment they showed his family.

I knew it was coming the moment he said he'd found the method for time travel.

I knew it the moment he looked at Peter's picture.

This was it.

And I can't tell you how much I both loved and hated the inevitable outcome of all his heroics.

On the one hand - he went out a hero. He went out the way he should have - protecting everyone he loved and ensuring a safer world for them. He was surrounded by his loved ones and mourned by all who knew him. It was impactful, it had meaning, and it was everything.

But kn the other hand- I'm angry. I'm pissed as hell that his happy ending - the one we fans have been praying for him to have - was thrown away in the most cruel and crushing way. He had a wife. He had a daughter. He had everything he'd ever wanted. But we just couldn't see him be a happy man; we couldn't see him retire and live a life that he deserved.

I wanted Tony Stark to find the same happiness I eventually did. I wanted him to find the peace I have both with myself and with my partner, my best friends, and my family.

The carpet was laid out....the torn right out from under him.

I'm normally not this bitter over a character death. We all die eventually. But I see it too often that characters like Tony - who work so hard to be the best people they can be, suffer multiple traumas, unhappiness, and stress while trying to do right - always get killed.

I'm at least glad he at least went out on his own terms.

So, thank you, Tony Stark. Thank you for being my hero. Thank you for making me fall back in love with Marvel. Thank you for saving my life.

And thank you, Robert Downey Jr, for reminding me that we can overcome even at our lowest moments. You're an icon, a legend, and you brought my hero to life in a way that changed my life for the better. I hope to see your future projects soon, but I'll miss the life, love, and dedication you brought to the MCU.

#avengers endgame #endgame spoilers #spoilers #tony stark #robert downey jr #tony stark fan for life

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kittenofdoomage · 2 years

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Omg okay. I’m so glad that I’m not the only one who has SO many ideas that it can be overwhelming and also struggles to write even with knowing what I wanna write.

Like I’ll have a whole idea for a 2 part series, know exactly how I want it to play out, etc, and I’ll start writing and I just lose motivation after like an hour because writing all the minor details can be tedious. If that makes sense? Like don’t get me wrong, I love writing, but I always want to be thorough and add in details to paint the best picture and make it as realistic as possible and that takes time.

Knowing I’m not the only one makes me feel a bit better tbh. I think I need to just plan a certain time just for writing instead of just sporadically choosing and then giving up

Oh, you are not alone lol

I get so angry with my inability to write some days. Every night in bed, or in the shower, I'm playing out these scenes over and over, like I could recite them. I wish I could just transmit the whole thing from my brain to a blank document lol

The two long fics I'm working on, I've got them outlined to the full, all the plot points, everything and still not actually writing it ffs (if anyone is interested, they're a medieval, sorta high fantasy SPN AU Dean/reader/Sam that's at 50k and barely started 😫 and an angsty Dean x reader that turned into a fucking series rewrite that's at 40k). It drives me nuts because I know the story I want to write but I'm lucky if I get a couple thousand words a week on them, sometimes nothing. But I can't post either of them yet, even though I've got upwards of 15 chapters on each because even though I'd hope that people would comment and want more and it would maybe motivate me?? It doesn't, because I did that with my last series, lost focus for it, now it's HAUNTING me that I have this unfinished series just sitting there, annoying myself and everyone else lmao

I don't throw away an idea though. Never. They get jotted down in a specific document that sometimes I stare at in despair and sigh because I want to write them all but my brain and my hands just will not coordinate.

AND I WANT TO SHARE OMG it's so difficult not to post for a chance at a boost of serotonin or pride in myself, because I want everyone to read what I've created, I wanna hear all the things you enjoy, the things you want more of, even the things you hated (constructively of course, or humorously, like "OMG I hate Dean for doing that, what an ass). What holds me back is that I know, most of the time now, that doesn't exist much for us writers here or on many other sites. When I do get comments, it's beautiful, I could literally cry, my heart races, I get excited for my story again. Right now, I'm getting comments on this Steve Rogers college AU on Ao3 (posting because it's finished lmao) and it's just so amazing that people enjoy the words I string together. I know, everyone is sick of us banging on about reblogs/comments etc. but honestly, if you're a writer, a creator of any kind, when someone tells you they like what you've done, it's a feeling like nothing else. I made that and someone likes it. That's awesome. I miss having that here on Tumblr. Sometimes I regret taking all my stories down from here because I feel like I punished myself and that's why I can't write.

I've gone off topic. Why can't I write this much on my damn stories??

Writing is so damn hard 😅😅

#writing is hard #rambling

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qqueenofhades · 6 years

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Hello! I have been a huge history nerd for most of my life and recently decided i would like to pursue history as a possible career, by I've recently been discouraged. I've had career counselors at my school and my parents and friends say that I should look to other careers because history simply isn't a lucrative job. I'd really like to know your thoughts since you're a historian. Btw I really look up to you and love your blog! So, thoughts on careers/colleges and the sort?

Aww, haha. You are sweet.

First, I will caveat at the outset that academia is a stressful and often stupid profession, nor is it, indeed, very lucrative. Nobody gets into it because they are expecting to make it rain, or because they enjoy not being constantly in doubt about their future/how things are going to string together/where they are going to end up next/if they will possibly have a full-time job by the time they are in their mid-thirties/etc. For example, I finish my PhD next summer, at which point I will need to immediately start applying for either postdoctoral fellowships, or see if I’m lucky enough to stumble upon that one junior lecturer/assistant research position that wants my exact research interests. Postdoc fellowships could be anywhere from three months to three years. Visiting/junior lectureships are usually for a contract of one or two years. You can string any number of these together (if you’re lucky) until/if you get a permanent position somewhere. This could also and probably will involve moving every year or two, so you don’t really get to settle down for a while. You will have to keep up your career/participation in academia, work to publish papers/go to conferences etc, while also paying the bills somehow. Sometimes the right opportunity falls into your lap, sometimes it doesn’t. You just have to keep grinding and hope that it does.

(And no, the pay is not anything to aspire to. I’m currently junior/doctoral student faculty in the department, teaching one class a semester, and yeah. It’s better if you’re salaried or getting a stipend, and I’m lucky enough to have my full tuition fees paid by scholarship. So if you want to be rich, this is not the job for you. But as ever, it improves as you go, and if you get a permanent position, you will be paid at least enough to live on. So we’re not talking cardboard-box-under-a-bridge levels of poverty.)

If that hasn’t scared you off, then we can go on to what I regard as the most important part. I’m always of the opinion that life is way too short to be doing anything other than what you love and are good at, and if you deliberately pick something you don’t like and don’t have passion for, on the expectation that it will make you money… well, that’s one way to live, and I’m sure people do well for themselves by it. But it sounds exhausting, horrible, and eventually soul-crushing to me, and which is why, despite all the clearly enunciated drawbacks listed above, I’d still rather be doing this than anything else. You don’t get to final-year PhD status (and the clutches of incipient insanity, but never mind that) without really loving it, and I do. I stumbled a bit ass backwardly into doing it as a career, but it really gives me a rush and an enjoyment and a delight which I have to hang onto during the hard sloggy bits or no-money bits or the “oh god it’s 11pm and I’ve been working on my thesis for the last ten hours” bits. And part of that is because in my view, in this current world, historians are more fucking important than ever, and this work really, really matters.

We’ve all remarked upon the way “historical accuracy” is used to justify bad treatment of women in period dramas, or the way narratives of an imagined medieval past are used by right-wing nationalists, or how “that’s totally medieval” is used as a synonym for something barbaric, etc. I always like to say that it astounds me how much people are totally confident they know what the medieval era was like, despite never having learned a thing about it. I’m also a medievalist of the generation that is pushing back and deconstructing medieval history’s previous reputation as a safe place for straight, white, Christian men to write a straight, white, Christian man’s history. I just got the syllabus the other day for the class I’m teaching in the spring semester, and I was totally delighted, because it’s basically the class I would have designed myself. It’s about medieval narratives in the modern world, and touches upon (among other things) the relevance/use of the crusades in the “war on terror,” the treatment of women in medieval fantasy dramas (a la Game of Thrones), the connection to right-wing nationalism and claimed histories and etc – all subjects on which I have written and thought about a lot and also posted about frequently on here. So yes, I can teach the shit out of that class, and trust me, it’s a good feeling when you can walk into work every day and know that you are doing something, however you can, about the terrifying and idiotic shitstorm that is the world right now. You are teaching people how to think about and identify these things and push back on them, and they in turn will teach other people how to do it. It’s an awfully small step, but we have to start somewhere.

History as a career also requires a major educational commitment – 4 years for a bachelor’s degree, 2 years for a master’s, and at least 3 for a PhD. That’s almost ten years at the minimum, assuming you have the means to study full time, and it will involve a lot of writing; I wrote a senior thesis (25 pages/10k words), a master’s thesis (60 pages/20k words), and I’m now working on a doctoral dissertation (~270 pages/100k words), after going through a program that emphasized writing, so I was doing 25-30 page papers for every class as an undergraduate. Especially as you move into postgraduate level, you have to be good about motivating yourself, because your time will be less structured. It is up to you to be the one to make it count, and you will also have to have a memory or at least the capability to use something to remember tons of tiny details. It will involve a lot of close reading of obscure texts, and probably language learning (in my case it’s been Latin and French, also Latin is terrible and nobody likes it and if I was smart, I would have avoided it, but hey). You will also have to have a thick hide, both for constructive criticism and for the constant rejection that comes with it. You will not get positions or university offers or scholarships or awards that you really, really wanted, and it takes a certain resilience to be able to move past that and not let it reflect personally on you and your abilities. It does, however, happen to everyone, so at least we can swallow the bitter Moral of the Story pill together?

Overall, my assessment is that we badly need more intelligent, trained, socially aware, and intersectional historians, and if you want to do it, the constant “but it’s not lucrative!!!” protests shouldn’t put you off. As I said above, it’s a serious commitment, it’s weird and stressful and work-intensive, and if you can see yourself being happy in any other career, you should probably do that instead. Doing something academically and professionally isn’t the same as doing it as a hobby, of course, but it does start with a love of the subject and the ability to see yourself doing it intensively and long-term, and as I said, I just feel like life’s far too short to pick something you only think will make you rich (since if you hate it, that’s years of your life you can’t get back, and it might not work out anyway).

I’m always happy to answer questions to the best of my ability, if you want to drop back in. And happy historinerding.

#history #luleraina #ask

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gilove2dance · 7 years

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Hey, Lindsay! I was wondering if I could ask you something? What made you wanna be a teacher? And what do you enjoy about it? I think I'd like teaching and maybe even be good at it, but it also seems super overwhelming. You're awesome and I hope you have a great day!

Of course you can ask me anything at all!! I just may not answer :P Nah, it would have to be a serious breach in privacy for me to not answer!

Teaching...okay...well my original plan was to actually pursue computer animation. It was a die hard dream that I had since 2003 when I saw Finding Nemo in theatres. I wanted to create the films that caused so much wonder and awe in me and inspire kids to do the same.

Flash forward to university...I did my undergrad in Interactive Multimedia and Design and got a little computer animation training (not much though). University was...lets go with the adjective “tough” on me mentally and physically. I graduated in the top 3% of my class but paid a hefty price in my deteriorating health. That summer I was still under the belief that I would move to Vancouver and attend Vancouver Film School for 3D animation and pursue that career.I believe it was in the beginning of August when I had probably the largest panic attack of my entire life. I was home alone in my basement, thinking about my future and it just hit me, how miserable I was and how my life had devolved into 20 hour work days that led to me periodically collapsing from exhaustion and how my anxiety was crippling me from doing a lot of things like social interaction outside of the computer lab or doing things to relax me. So in the midst of this panic attack, trying to just breathe and get oxygen in my lungs before I blacked out, I managed to get control of my body and my mind and just took a step back from everything and tried to figure out at what point in my life was I the happiest I had ever been.

What I had I done in my life that made me truly happy?

And the answer was teaching. I used to teach dance throughout high school at my old dance studio. I used to tutor math to lower grades. I used to run study groups during my undergrad. And then it hit me. I could work myself to death, trying to become a master at something that was going to work me to the bone mentally and physically for a slim shot at a dream job....OR...I could go directly to the source...I could teach. I could teach Communication Technology, my favourite course in high school where I would get to teach graphic design, web dev, film editing, visual effects, and my love: computer animation...and i would get to actually see the direct impact I could possible have on these kids and possibly inspire them...which was my main goal at the start.

I attended teachers college the year after and during my 10 week placement at a school where I got to teach a grade 9/10 class of Communications Technology, I remember sitting in the car on the way home and looking at the window and just being completely floored by the emotion I was feeling. I was happy. For the first time in five years, I was actually happy. I knew this was what I was supposed to be doing.

Now it’s a frustrating profession at times (like any job though)...dealing with parents is not always the greatest, sometimes you just can’t help a struggling student because they don’t want to be helped, sometimes the class is just going to be chaos for a day and nothing will get done, but on the whole, it is the most rewarding thing ever. To see a kid who hates school and then suddenly fall in love with website coding and actively searches for new code to implement on their own? To show a student that pursuing film editing is a real career choice? To see a quiet kid create an amazing piece of graphical art?

That’s why I do this. To see them grow and learn and be inspired and motivated.

Well...that was long and involved me spilling far to much of my life story (sorry)...did that help in any way? If you are more curious about lesson planning, assessment and evaluation, or like rubric building...do send more questions...I’d be happy to help!

TLDR; Became a teacher to inspire and motivate kids into finding their dreams. I love seeing kids getting involved in what I’m teaching. It is the most rewarding thing I’ll ever do in my life.

#long post #so sorry #apparently i had a lot to say tonight #ackackh #someone asked me something!

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