When You Don't Feel Like Writing, Blogging, or Whatever You Do...

So. It's been fifteen days since I last updated my blog, which I had previously been updating at least every other day. Have I had school, emergencies, sickness, internet issues? Nope. I've had weeks with absolutely nothing to do. Nothing has gone wrong, I haven't been on a do-nothing-whatsoever-vacation, so why haven't I been keeping up?
  Well, I've decided to turn this into a good message. Everyone has this issue, right? So I'm going to explain why I haven't updated, why it applies to you, and why it's totally not an issue.

• So the main reason I haven't been writing: my interests have a cycle. Writing and blogging aren't all I do! I also dance, I read a lot, I study psychology (more specifically mental illnesses, criminal profiling, and serial killers.), and I have zone-out days. All these interests go in cycles; I rarely watch psychology videos and dance videos on the same day. For about a week I do dance, then I feel like doing nothing for a day or so, then I transition into psychology, do nothing, and the cycle goes on. So in short, I felt like dancing and turning myself into pretzel/rubberband instead of writing. 
• My point here: I don't have a million or even a thousand readers. I don't make money for this. I have legit no reason why I have to write this. I do it because I feel like it, so when the cycle moves on to another interest, I'd rather pour my heart and soul into that interest than force myself to write a blog post that won't give me anything. 
• A lot of people seem to have this thing where they force themselves to write, blog, vlog, etc. because they feel they should. That's not right. That's what ruins things for me, is forcing myself to do the thing. That gives me negative emotional associations with the activity, and soon I hate it as much as I hate biology. So the thing is, if you don't have a valid reason such as money, a promise, or something of the sort, don't force yourself to keep up with these things. It's okay to do something else for a while. 

Writing With Aphantasia

  I'm going to ask you to complete a simple test... Okay? All you have to do is follow the instructions, and remember what details you can. Ready?
 Imagine a tree. What kind of tree is it? Is it summer or winter? What's the background like? Is it day or night? Can you change the color of the tree? Change the time of day, the background, the season? Can you put birds in the tree?
  Okay, now that you've completed that... From a Scale of 0 to 10, how detailed and easily changeable were the mental images? 0 is absolutely nothing, no image at all, and 10 is as vivid as if the tree was right in front of you.
  Now, for those of you like me who answered zero... You have aphantasia. Congrats! Aphantasia is basically the inability to see things in your mind, you just see a blank space up there no matter you do. 1 to 10, you have varying levels of inner sight, and good for you! Don't take it for granted!
  So now that you know if you have aphantasia or not, how does that have anything to do with writing? Well, it's mostly just a useful thing to note, but sometimes it can actually suck. So see below for the list of places it affects my writing (and reading!)

1. Worldbuilding

  Yep, worldbuilding. I have a pretty good dislike for describing surroundings, or worse, creating a fantasy world. I can't see any of this in my head, and I don't see any of it in my head when I read either, so for me describing or creating a world is useless. However, most people do actually see that world in their mind... So someone's gotta tell them what it looks like. 

  My remedy for this has two pieces... One, you find pictures of the setting or even have the setting be your own town. Something you can physically see for yourself and describe from the picture. This is much easier than making something up and hoping it's consistent every time I mention something. 

  Second and lastly, when I'm working on my first draft, I write how I naturally write. Everything is in the character's heads, all about their thoughts and emotions, and small snippets of out in the world. (Personally, I'd love a book like that, because again... I connect to these people emotionally, I enter their mental world, not the outer one. So if someone cut all the scenery and put more emphasis on the people, I'd love that book to the ends of the earth! But everyone's not me, so...) Then, number one on my list of editing is to go in and add more world details. What do people look like, what does this prison look like, what do the woods look like? And then I describe those pictures more deeply and have someone read it to make sure I'm doing it right. 

2. Le Crie

  That's a random title thing up there... But yes, true. I can't see my precious characters. 

  A while ago I heard someone say something along the lines of, "I'm never going to watch The Hunger Games movies because it'd ruin my mental image of the characters!" I honestly thought they were either crazy or overly dramatic... What mental image? I've read hundreds of books, and have never once seen a "mental image". If you gave me a picture of Katniss Everdeen with Bella Swan and no hints like a bow and arrow, there's no way I'd be able to tell them apart! Now that I know that seeing characters is a very real thing, just not for me, that random title comes into play. I can't see Jamie or Sabrina either and have no idea what they look like, aside from the pictures on their character pages. Thing is, those pictures aren't perfect, and I don't know what exactly is wrong with them. But those aren't the real Jamie and Sabrina, that's all I know... And I can't draw them or have someone else draw them, because there's no image and I have no idea how to describe them aside from the basics... 

  What I've learned from this, anyways, is that I have to find a picture and build a character off the picture. Not build a character and try to find a person who looks similar enough. And then with reading, you just hope there's a picture on the cover or a movie adaption or forget the idea of actually seeing them. 

3. Fight Scenes

  These suck... Because they're so suspenseful and action-packed, holding so much of the future of the story, and I can't visualize them. It's very difficult to describe the moves and get the pacing right when I feel like I'm watching a movie with the sound on and my eyes closed. Like, someone got hit, but who? How? Where? What's happening now?? There are too many "in a blur" "quicker than I could see" etc. in every fight/action scene because it happens so fast and I can't see it. Yes, it's very frustrating, but there is a solution! 

  That solution is basically finding characters in a book or movie that have similar powers and kind of copying the scene. What I do is copy the scene, add a few changes: maybe some dialogue, brief description, change up the order, get someone stabbed in a different place, etc. But just taking the basic essence of an already successful fight and sticking your characters in is actually very efficient. I don't know if it's plagiarism or not... But if you change it enough you should be fine. 

4. In Reading - Fantasy and Large Casts

  In writing, I can find ways around this. Research, extensive editing, and having someone else read it. In reading, however, I'm just stuck. (Beware: Large rant ahead. Only read if you want to, for some reason! Thanks!)

  There are certain books, such as Lord of The Rings, that everyone loves and I just don't get it. Up until now, I hadn't given why much thought, but now I know. There are so many places, inhuman creatures, and people in general that I get lost in the journey. My mind gets bored of hearing descriptions of places and people that I can't see, and by the time I get all the details of one place straight, they've moved onto another! (To make this clearer, I don't see things in my mind, but I memorize facts. The room is large, doors are here and here, second floor, blank walls, etc. And I like to feel I know the surroundings so I'm not left in the middle of a fight wondering if that doorway has always been there or if it was a convenient escape. So I can innerly yell at their stupidity of missing that door if they don't use it.) And then with so many characters, again, I connect emotionally with them and remember them based on personality and all. When you have a lot of characters mainly distinguishable by the fact that one's an elf and one's a human, but they act similarly and don't give me anything to connect with, they just blur together and I hate that. 

  So I don't like fantasy because so much is based on the unique looks of the character's and world, there are new rules, and I can't see any of it. It's much simpler to read about a bunch of humans in an average town so I can feel I already have a sense of how the world works/looks, and move on with the story instead of getting caught up in the details. 

My Current Story Writing Crisis...

  This isn't a tip post, a funny post, nothing like that. This is a post about my thought process as I doubt everything I've done, what I want to do with my book, everything. Mostly, this is just me trying to get my thoughts onto paper so I can look at them and make a good decision. However, as most problems are not unique to a single human being, maybe this will help someone out there...

The Whole Mess... Beautiful Mess, But Mess All The Same. 

  So basically, I wrote the novel. Twice. The first time I wrote it in Sabrina's POV (Point of view, for idiots like past me who had no idea what that meant) and honestly it sucked. Grammar was atrocious, storytelling was off, I could go on a whole rant on this... In fact, I already have, here's the link! 

  The second time, the most recent time, I wrote Jamie's POV in as well. So now we've got both Jamie and Sabrina as main characters, however, I don't think it's working. The whole book is fine up until the end, when spoilers that I cannot say happen, and I realize that nobody's going to have much motivation to read book 2. That could be fixed if I took Jamie's POV out of the book... But there's a reason I put his POV in there in the first place! 

   I could only use Jamie's POV, but I don't know if that would fix the ending problem... I could come up with a new ending, but that would include rewriting the last 1/4 of the book and having to create a totally different book 2. His POV is honestly much more interesting, and he's used to create a "pink-filter" (Apparently I made that term up, I have no idea if I did or not, but every time I bring it up nobody has any idea what I mean, so yeah.) for Bree. I personally dislike Bree, she's just not a relatable character to me. I love some of her lines and her sense of humor, but I just don't like her as the only POV character. So I use the pink-filter to see her through the love-struck lense of Jamie's eyes, therefore making her more likable. She sucks without him in multiple ways. 

  So using Sabrina as the only POV character would make the ending so much better, but would the rest of the book suffer for it? Is it just me who dislikes her, or is she crap? I've already changed her, as in name, personality, background, everything. And I still don't like her. 

  So what on earth do I do with this? The lazy part of me is saying to just leave it and hope people want to read book 2, which is a viable option, but I know the book could be better than that. The logical side is saying to cut Jamie out of the book because my biggest problem with Bree is my emotions getting in the way. Suck it up and rewrite the darn thing again! Then my emotional side, saying to totally use Jamie as the POV character because his POV is more interesting, I love writing about him more, and he doesn't even need to be a pink-filter if we only know Bree through him. 

  AND. THIS PAID OFF. 

  That last sentence there reminded me of something I told my Dad to do when he didn't know what to work on... "Do what you love, the project you won't go crazy on if you spend two years on it. That'll make it come out better, the love shines through, and chances are that someone else will have the same interest." 

  So Jamie's POV it is... Because I like writing his POV. This will turn out amazing because I'll love every second and every word of it! Woohoo!! Bree will be more likable, I'll find a way to make a more compelling ending,  the story will be more interesting and all, and I won't go crazy writing it. 

  I'm gonna let this decision sit overnight... Because oftentimes my emotional decisions aren't the most logical (See for reference: Decision to buy $20.00 shirt when I just barely had enough money to buy dance classes for the month, which is not optional. Now I need $16, without a job. Go me.)

  Anyways, if you made it to the end, thank you! Here's my tip... Rant. Talk it out, write it out, even if you have no audience, getting it out of your head helps A LOT.  Feel free to say it to me, I'll give feedback if you want. Thanks again for reading! 

Funny Writing Quotes and Stories

  We all need a good laugh every so often... So before I go into my whole killing characters, writing gory scenes, writing horror, and all my Halloween things, here's some funny humor!
  Not all of this will be funny to all people, but most (fiction) writers should get a kick out of it... Some short stories, some quotes I find on Google, but nothing that I don't personally find funny!

1. 

  My Sister: "Okay, so I'm doing a 30 day Halloween drawing challenge. So if you see pictures of my character gouging their eye out or something, don't worry." 

  Me: "Oh, don't worry about it." 

  Sister: "So you're not gonna think I'm crazy or something?" 

  Me: *looks up from writing the scene in my book where rats eat someone's intestines while they're alive and conscious* "Oh no, not at all." 

3. 

  *writes all day and gets stuck* 

  *spends hours trying to figure out what needs to happen* 

  *tries to go to bed... GOT IT!!* 

  *seriously regrets the fact that I share a room and can't stay up all night* 

  *forgets by morning* 

2. 

  Me: "Hey guess what! I'm revising that book I wrote a year ago that  you liked, it'll be like a totally new book and so much better!!" 

  Friend: "Wow, cool! Can I be in it? Can this character not die? Can I have a free copy when it's done? 

  Me: *having almost finished revising and having zero reason to add in another character, knowing full well that that character can't live because it destroys the plot, and having $0.45*  "Right... I'll see what I can do."  *while rolling my eyes because none of that has any chance of happening*

4. 

When you have more novel ideas, outlines, and maybe half-finished manuscripts than friends. 

5. 

I could insult anyone from the 1800s accurately. I could also insult anyone today and they'd have no idea what I mean, and then I can walk away laughing. Right, I mean, who knows the difference
between a vazey, fustilarian gnashnab and a murit old church bell? I do!


Thanks Jamie, I love the insults from your era.

6.

Being a dancer and a writer sucks. Because music is my inspiration for both.

7.

Anyone: "So what's your book about?"
Me: "Have a seat..."
*two hours later*
Anyone: *asleep*
Me: "...So now she's really messed up, and is trying to push everyone away, and - Oh, I'm probably giving away too spoilers, sorry! Or... Being boring... Okay."

8.

My sister: "Hey, let's look at funny stuff on Instagram!"

Me: "Okay, go get your tablet."

Sister: "No, it's dead, let's just use your laptop."

Me: "No! Let's get... Oh my tablet is dead too... Okay fine."

Me: *types I*

Search recommendation history: Insults from the 1800s

Sister: "Why were you looking up that? Hey I have an idea!" *grabs laptop* *types H*

Search recommendation history: How long does boom-slang snake venom take to kill you? How do you make someone unconscious with your hands? How much does someone bleed when you stab them in the stomach?

Sister: "Oh, wow. What are you doing?"

Me: "Maybe if you read my book you'd know."

9.

*listening so closely to how people talk that you forget what they're trying to tell you*

10.

Writer's Block: When your imaginary friends won't talk to you.

11.

Me: *having conversation with fictional character in real life to get used to how they talk and stuff*

*door opens*

Me: "I'm not talking to myself!"

Whoever came in: "Well... Who are you talking to?"

Me: "Sabrina and Jamie."

....: "Who??"

Me: "The main characters in my book, we were talking about how much of a bad experience flashbacks and hallucinations are."

.....: "....They aren't real, how are you having a conversation? And why would you know any of that stuff?"

Me: "How rude... You obviously aren't a writer, and obviously haven't been reading my book!"

12.

How do you irritate a writer? the list is to long too fit hear

13. 

If you hurt me or anyone I love... I know 5 ways to knock someone unconscious without a weapon, millions of countless ways to kill you, exactly how to avoid suspicion while perfectly framing your parents/bf/gf/friends, and if necessary how to make it look like you had a heart attack without drugs. It's for your own good when I say leave me alone. 

14. 

  In response to #13, that's all assuming I have the physical strength, balance, and accuracy to do what's needed. Which I know every detail of, but considering that my fingers and hands are the single used part of my body I don't know how successful I'll be. 

And that I wouldn't be tempted to taunt the cops to feel like my book characters. 

And that I mentally have what it takes, because I have more experience dealing with the after-effects of murder than carrying it out. 

So basically... Pretend I'm scarier than I am because I have knowledge. 

15. 

  If you're anything like me,  you like words more than numbers, which is exactly why you didn't notice that I switched 5 and 7. 

Did you just go check? Good. Because it was actually 2 and 3. 

Did you check again? Well congrats, that changed your whole life a lot. Numbers always do. Numbers are useless... 

The Greatest of Random/Weird/Dumb Writing Questions

  In honor of all the weird things about writing... Here are weird and random questions related to writing! Some of these you might wonder where I got, some you might've thought yourself and not even realized it was weird.
  So here we go, let's see what a procrastinating mind with a fever can possibly come up with...

1. Does Math Help With Writing? 

  Well let's see... NO. Or that's what my mind says, because I love writing and hate math so in no way can they have any relation to each other. 

  But, as usual, opinions are wrong. That's why nobody ever takes them seriously. Math can help you with writing, because in novels there's thing called a word count that matters, or if you have some immortal 592 year old character who's asked what his exact birthday is you might wanna be able to subtract... 

  That, and using your brain in any way just makes it overall stronger, meaning that Mental Abuse To Humans toughens up your brain... 

  And by the time your done, writers block is obliterated, you just wanna do anything but math!! 

2. You Know Your Character's Aren't Real, Right?

  Well then! I can scientifically prove you wrong! 

  The whole world is light reflected back at your eyes that your brain interprets into a picture. Meaning that the world is basically only what your brain says. And my brain is pretty obviously telling me that my book characters are real! 

  That wasn't enough for you? Well how about this: Define real. To me, real is anything I can experience in any way. And I can experience my characters and anything they experience. Here's some stuff to think about... If someone you love has died, are they not real? You can't see, hear, touch, taste, or smell them (I hope!) but they're still real, right? You can still think about them and love them? Yep. 

  Same with my book characters, I'm more obsessed with them than anyone I know in real life as of now! Just because they're thoughts and memories doesn't mean they aren't real! 

  (I don't know whether or not I explained that adequately or not, and I had another point but I forgot it... Maybe I'll come back and edit this when my brain is functioning better.)

3. Do Writer's Write Their Fantasy and Self-Insert?

  Um, I dunno about other people... But I don't really want my parents to ditch me after a traumatic event that includes me killing someone and go to a prison where you stay until you die very quickly, and have various mental disorders... Sure it all turns out okay, but why would I want to do that? 

  Why would Suzanne Collins want to be entered in a tournament where she fights to the death with kids? 

  Why would Stephanie Meyers want her unborn baby to break her spine? 

  Why anything! Man, whoever says this either reads a lot of romances that have not nearly enough drama, or you are like, crazy? I dunno... 

4. Why Are You So Protective Of Your Laptop? What Are You Hiding? 

  Lemme see... Is it the search history? Maybe some of the images I downloaded for book covers? Or is it the actual book, which cannot be seen until's it's been edited? 

  Probably mostly the search history, here are some of my most recent searches: 

• How long does boomslang snake venom take to kill you?
• How much radiation does it take to serious mutate someone?
• How much does it bleed when someone gets stabbed in the stomach?
• Why does nobody know the answer to how much you bleed from getting stabbed in the stomach? (Really though, I don't care how long before they die, how much do they bleed??)
• How do plants grow? 
• How do you give someone PTSD?
• How to make someone unconscious with your hands (Descriptive, I know...) 
• Did people cuss in the 1800's? 
• 46 - 24 answer

See what I mean? Nobody should ever know that! Which is exactly why I'm putting up for public viewing! 

  Yeah, so... Now you know, stop trying to find out my secrets that I hide on here! 

5. Do Writers Love Their Characters? 

  Well duh, no! We only took exactly months finding out every detail about and writing the story of people we hate! Why on earth would we create characters that we love when we could hate their guts instead? 

  Okay, excuse my sarcasm. That's my humor, offensive or no, if you haven't noticed by now! Anyway, most of the time we writers love our characters to death! Literally! 

  But... There are some exceptions... For me, at least. Those are either when the character is destined to die, is just the overall jerky bad guy, or one special situation I'll explain in a second... 

  If a character is going to die and I've planned that from the beginning, I make them be someone I'd personally hate. I make them use words I hate (ex. pet peeve, O.M.G., etc.) I give them a personality that both matches the story and makes me want to scream, and usually they wear yellow... By the time I get around to chapter death, they're good to go! Make it stop!!! 

  The bad guy... I dunno, sometimes I like them okay, but often times they're like a destined-to-die who's on the opposing side and may or may not actually die. But most of the things that make people bad, like being selfish or sadistic or something, are things that bug me. 

  Then there's that special case there... I'm not going to point fingers or anything (Avoiding prejudice!), but girl I made you and your guy! And I kind of regret letting you have him!! So... Maybe go die? Please? Except I can't kill you because that defeats the point of the story... 

6. Are You All Poor? 

  Yeah, Stephen King and J.K. Rowling and Stephanie Meyer and Suzanne Collins are pretty poor... I know, thousands to millions isn't a lot... 

  C'mon people, sure some of us are poor... Like me. But that doesn't mean we don't have potential or that it's impossible!! 

7. What's So Great About Writing? 

  Here's my personal list: 

• I can be whoever I want in writing, literally. Same way readers immerse in the story while reading, I do while writing. Maybe even more than readers, because I don't remember ever feeling the same panic, pain,  and all as my characters to the point of having to stop when I'm reading. 
• Creative outlet. Best ever, in my opinion! 
• The clicking sound keys on a keyboard make. 
• Knowing almost unjustifiable creepy facts, like exactly how certain serial killers murdered people and what it looks like.
• Psychology chance of all chances... I CAN DO ANYTHING!!!! 

Do you have any questions about writing? Weird, useful, or otherwise? Because I would love to answer them! (I don't bite, unless you happen to come to my prison >:) Don't worry!) Questions or comments are welcome! Hate is also welcome, as long as you don't mind my sarcastic replies. Thank you!! 

My Favorite Things About Being A Writer

  While there's good and bad in everything you do, and I've already talked about some of the things that suck about writing... (That's just amateur writing, not writing for a living!) It's time for everything I love about writing!
  Some of these are kind of universal writing things, some of these are things that I've never heard before, but they're all things that motivate me to keep writing!

1. Being Someone Else

  True, most of my characters are treated extremely horribly, many have some sort of mental disorder (I mean, Jamie has PTSD and Bree has Trauma Induced Amnesia, those take quite a bit of trauma to get...) So it's not like a want to be them, have their life, or anything along those lines. But as someone interested in psychology, I LOVE making complex characters, backstories, and being able to delve into someone else's mind and understand everything perfectly. And I generally do this to the point that I feel like I am that character, and sometimes even experience physical symptoms of what's going on for them (Only when I'm writing them; I don't randomly get Jamie's flashbacks in the middle of my day or anything! I'm not that crazy!) Which honestly, even though feeling what I make them go through can suck, I think it's the most amazingly awesome thing about writing. 

2. Venting

  I don't always do this when I write, but if I happen to be furious at the same time that my characters are... Well they're gonna be spitting venomous hatred at whoever messed with them! Sure, I write some pretty good emotions when I don't really feel it... But there is nothing better than when a character and I agree. 

  That's not even to mention that by the time I'm done, I can easily detach from the emotion. The anger is all Bree's now! Not mine anymore, and it won't bug me again. 

3. Conveying All Of The Things

   I also love to convey messages, share my thoughts with people and all... And so I use my books to do exactly that! Whenever I have some thought that I want to share with the world, I see if it'll fit into any of my current projects smoothly, and if not I write it down and promptly lose the piece of paper!
  But yeah, that's why John Green is one of my favorite authors. I love how each of his books has such a deep, "WOW" kind of message. That right there is my aspiration.

4. That Heart Attack

  Oh, you know when you give someone your completed work that you put a lot of time and heart and life into? Yeah, that heart attack. When you're so scared and excited and just can't wait... I love that feeling. Most people seem to hate it... Like, have anxiety just from that, but I guess I'm one of the few people who thinks that's the most exciting and alive feeling ever.
  Either I experience that differently than others, or I'm sadistic towards myself (There's probably a real word for that, but I can't find it, so you just have to be smart enough to get the idea!)

5. Every. Single. Song. 

  Every single song I listen to reminds me of either a book or a character. And that's awesome. No more needs to be said about this.
  Except I love it. I love relating everything to my characters.     

6. The Danger! *Gasps* 

  Have you seen the newest news thing?! Oh my gosh, somebody was killed by writing! They thought it was just a minor injury, but within 48 hours they were dead!! I mean, writing is so dangerous! Why would anyone want to do that?! 

  Nah, just kidding. Writing is one of the best activities ever that really can't hurt you in any way... Never mind kill you. I've never gotten hurt from writing, and I haven't heard anyone who has! 

  As long as you don't suck and are trying to make a living writing garbage, you kind of really can't fail or get hurt here. It's so awesome!! 

7. Crazy

  Being crazy, that's the best. Not literally crazy, because crazy people aren't allowed to be a psychiatrist and that's what I want to do. But seriously, you can do whatever you want in your book world! And you're even allowed to be unusual in the real world; as in you can stutter and bounce around because you figured out a plot-point, or watch people in the name of research, or zone out randomly, or be shut away from the world for days because you're working on a masterpiece! That's all kind of expected from authors or anyone creative really, so yeah!!

  Plus I can be a murderer in my book. And even though writing someone into my book just to kill them is too much work... That's what short stories and flash-fiction are for!! 

My 7 Biggest Writer Pet Peeves

  Firstly, the words "pet peeve" are a pet peeve of mine. I don't know why, but they're almost as bad as fingernails on jeans... So I'm not going to be using that word anymore, I'll be finding a lot of synonyms! (If there's a ridiculously big word that nobody knows, it's a synonym!)
  So, now that that's all clear, let's get into my list of pesky writing  annoyances! (These aren't listed in order by the way, but the first one is the worst...)

1. What Part 0f FICTION Do You Not Understand?! 

  Whenever I say that I'm a writer, people ask what I write... And I say fiction, and it's like their heads can't handle it. Not as a job. You know, it's not like Stephen King and J.K. Rowling exist or anything, or like fiction is one of the biggest genres ever or anything... 

  They can't just admit it though, what do they say? 

  "You could write political speeches!" 

  "Have you thought of being a copywriter?" 

  "Look at this article in newspaper, you could have your own column!"

  "Here's a book on how to write self-help books!" 

  Gee thanks... But there's kind of a world of difference between fiction and any of the above! Literally, a world, as in one world is real and the other is full of vampires and demons and psychopathic murderers bent on destroying you! And guess which world I chose to live in!! 

  I mean, I appreciate the thought, I get that fiction is rough... But did you seriously think that I didn't think of all that before I decided to do this? 

  Yeah, so there's #1! Please recognize the difference in everything about fiction and nonfiction... 

2. That World You Were Creating Clashes Pretty Bad With The Real World... 

  This isn't exactly one of those vexatious topics of things other people do... More like something the world does. When I'm planning my alternate book world, the real world is supposed to just disappear... Not throw a rattlesnake at me. Yeah, I get that you're upset that I'm replacing you, but you're 4.543 billion years old! Grow up!
  I'm not even kidding though, there was one time I was walking around outside planning my story-world and out of nowhere there's a rattlesnake less than a foot away from me! Thankfully it was cool enough out that it wasn't feeling good enough to bite me... But that almost gave me a heart attack!
  This happens quite a bit, not with rattlesnakes specifically, but unless I'm home alone, locked in my room, under a blanket, something happens that's distracting all the time! 
  Again world... Grow up please.

Here's that snake by the way!

3. Those Tiny Little Details... That Totally Kill The Story. 

  You've got a book written, mostly edited, ready to go! And then you realize... Oh, this person has been in prison for a hundred years and never been out of his cell. I took care of how that's possible in the first place, but why his hair still in this complicated short haircut? This isn't fantasy, he isn't a fairy or an angel... Ugh!!

  Or when the girl is 17, and then in 75 years she'll be a hundred... Wow me. Kudos, you did something that not even fantasy or magic can explain!  Easily enough fixed, but how on earth did I even do that? 

  Wait, I know! Actually, I don't. I just hate math to the point that I disregard numbers. Haha. 

4. Apathetic Melodrama. 

  That is a huge problem for me, and I hate it. I can't even explain how querulous this makes me, rereading over what I just wrote and seeing that wow, that was way more emotion than getting caught by the police which is what you wanted in the first place calls for! But you're totally disregarding the fact that you just killed the third person in a row! 

  Yeah, total newbie mistake, but editing my writing just makes me so annoyed sometimes... 

5. Distractions

  No, not the same as world distractions. Those are things that I have no control over, like stepping on snakes! These distractions are more along the lines of the music that I always use for writing suddenly demanding that I sing along, or the beat just needs me to dance to it. Or every time I sit down to write my mind reminds me of how I haven't checked my email, or seen if my schoolwork has been graded yet, or have I kept up with my 102 day french streak?! 

  Yeah, those. I can't work with those, because they take my illogical stubbornness and use it against me. Even now, they're creeping into my mind because I'm thinking about them... 

6. Can I See? 

  "What are you doing? Can I see?"

  "I'm writing, and no you can't see it!" 

  "Why not? OMG are you writing bad things?! Why don't you want me to see, what are you hiding??" 

  If by that you mean totally sucky writing about people being murdered... Yeah. But you know what? You can't see because I don't want criticism yet! And because even after it's edited to perfection, it's really not your genre and you won't like it. And by the way, I say this exactly 100% of the time you ask that! 

  Yeah, we all know those people, don't we? 

7. Must... Keep... Writing! 

  So we've got too distracted to write... And then we've got it's impossible to write because I'm at dance class or in a video chat lesson for school, but the only thing on my mind is how awesome that story is and how I have to write it now before the magic disappears! 

  Maybe by now I should have learned to carry a notebook around to write ideas or whatever in, but nah... That's too much effort. And my notebook is about as big as my laptop, and I don't really want to buy another one so I can forget it at the library or Walmart. 

So that's all the churlishly annoying things I've got for now! The Distracting Thoughts came through again, so now all I've got is how excited I am that my early morning class tomorrow is about mental illnesses! Because I'm not sadistic or anything!

  No really, I'm not... That's why I'm being a Psychiatrist as well as an author. 

Bye. Vale. Au revoir. Adios.