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Writing for Fun and Leisure

by LazyWriter

Rated: 13+ · Book · Personal · #2186370

Well, not so much fun and leisure as...get some damn writing done, you fool!

A while ago, I attended a writers' workshop and the lady who hosted it told us all to go away with this bit of advice - to write for just ten minutes a day. I was determined to go ahead with it and I did...for two days. So today I remembered that I'd resolved to do so and I whipped out my journal and wrote for fifteen minutes.

I'm typing out pretty much the same thing that I wrote earlier, with some differences. I find I can go a lot more in-depth when I'm typing than when I'm writing by hand. Writing by hand is such a chore!

I've struggled with loneliness a lot throughout my twenty-nine years. I struggled with it when I was the only one home with my mum when I was a teen and everybody else had other places to be. I struggled with it after marriage and when we moved into our own house for the first time. I struggled with it after my son was born and I felt torn between pursuing my writing and being a good mum, because my culture seems to indicate that a woman has absolutely no chance of living her own life - or at least, she has no chance of attaining any goals she hasn't already attained - once she has children.

I feel it occasionally still, even though I get so little time to myself nowadays that any alone time is simply awesome. I've tried to come to terms with the idea that being alone isn't a bad thing - and a lot of the time, it isn't. My friends don't live nearby so I don't get to see them often, and even when I do, I feel like there isn't much depth to our conversations. I'm surrounded by people who do not think like me, who do not share any of my interests and hobbies. I feel like I've become desensitised to isolation. Loneliness is my preferred way to be.

I walked into my college cafeteria at lunch today and it was the usual hubbub of activity. Youngsters walking around, chatting animatedly, shouting across the room, laughing, eating, socialising. I could recall how that clamour wouldn't have bothered me ten-twelve years ago, when I would have been one of the youngsters talking excitedly with her friends. But, as this moment, I just found an out-of-the-way little table and sat down. I watched the crowds for a while, wondering why it was only at moments like these that the sense of isolation became so strong. In the middle of a crowd, I feel most alone.

Show Recent Comments

10 Most Recent Blog Comments:

Kåre เลียม Enga

Nov 9, 2019 at 6:55pm
In response to "Invalid Entry"

I've made that mistake... but here I sit in the kitchen area... no glass in hand.

Kit_Carmelite

Oct 31, 2019 at 9:36pm
In response to "Invalid Entry"

We creative types are often slaves to our feelings. If we don’t “feel” like doing something, it is so much harder for us to push past that to “just do it” than for less emotional and more structured types.

Jaelynn

Sep 3, 2019 at 3:39pm
In response to "Invalid Entry"

LOL. You're not alone, my friends.... I do this all the time.
Pssst... join the club (we meet on Tuesdays

)

Best of luck with your next streak, LazyWriter

LdyPhoenix

Sep 3, 2019 at 2:34pm
In response to "Invalid Entry"

I feel you on remembering a task and then prompting forgetting to do. Even though I know myself enough, I always mentally tell myself "in a moment" or "in two shakes of a lamb's tail", and then immediately forget what I was planning to do next, lol.

You'll do great building up your language streaks again. I wish you all the luck with it in the future.

An apple a day....

Aug 12, 2019 at 1:46pm
In response to "Invalid Entry"

Any writing is better than no writing. I do admire busy people who can make time to write. I'm retired and have no excuses except procrastination. Keep up the good work!

Kåre เลียม Enga

Aug 2, 2019 at 11:48pm
In response to "Invalid Entry"

Reminds me of country "I've done someone wrong" songs we have here in the USA. Have fun with it.

Kåre เลียม Enga

Jul 31, 2019 at 7:53pm
In response to "Invalid Entry"

A blog can be anything you want it to be. I have one for opinions, for personal stuff, for when I travel, based on the news. I've used them for poetry and contests and challenges.

And I've changed focus over time. When I was homeless years ago, Blogville was my online home. I backed up most of those entries and still can access many. Some day they may provide grist for a memoir of that time. I was also writing in my hand-written journal. Without that any looking back would be devoid of the details I have long forgot.

Just sitting down every day for 10-20 minutes and writing whatever comes to mind counts, especially if it keeps you writing.

Kåre เลียม Enga

Jul 28, 2019 at 11:17pm
In response to "Invalid Entry"

Laziness or lack of focus or overwhelm? You may be being a bit hard on yourself.

I'd never heard of "Umbrella Academy" so I looked it up. Intriguing trailer but I don't have Netflix so I'll just have to wait.

Kåre เลียม Enga

Jul 25, 2019 at 10:00pm
In response to "Invalid Entry"

You do well for short blogs. You do well squeezing the time in with a small child. Basically... you do well.

Kåre เลียม Enga

Jul 20, 2019 at 4:17pm
In response to "Invalid Entry"

I don't write fan-fiction but I have other writing obsessions, moving from one unfinished project to the next.

Which is why I was so proud of myself when I finished a chapbook in 2015 of poems I had written in 2013.

Now if in 2019 I could just gather my scattered thoughts from 2018, 2017, 2016...

Don't feel too bad. Many of us have the same struggles.

July 20, 2019 at 6:50am

#962885

When Fanfiction Takes Over

11:38

I'm having a bit of a problem. I started writing a plotless fanfic (like you do), for the sole purpose of motivating myself to start writing. It kind of worked...on the days when I bothered to do any writing. But when I do sit down to seriously fill a page, I do become quite invested in it. The idea was just to get used to writing every day but when I become too invested, all my other, original works get put on hold. I want to finish the fanfic before I tackle anything else, even though there isn't an end in sight. Fanfics are like my relaxed writings - I do it for the sake of writing, nothing else...and also because, you know...certain pairings appeal to me :D

Since I started writing seriously a few years ago (I've mentioned in my bio that my resolution to write has wavered over the years - sometimes, I felt I should do it, at other times I was like "Who cares anyway? Forget it." but I've decided to go with it and see where it takes me, as of 2017), I've felt that fanfiction kills my creativity. Generally, it's the same crap over and over again and I don't care about plots and characters. I don't have to do the characterisation since it's already been done by someone else, right? It's a challenge since they're not my characters and the things they do and say can only be confirmed by the author who thought them up. Readers would often leave reviews saying "I don't think X would do this" or "Y wouldn't say something like that". It's too constraining and everyone has different interpretations.

...So you see how fanfiction took over the entry for a bit there? I hadn't meant to do that. I really have a problem with it

11:48

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