There is something you want to write that you know is a really bad idea.
The reason it is a very bad idea varies.
Maybe it’s a bad idea because you are afraid people will make bad inferences from your writing it. Maybe it’s a bad idea because it’s completely different from what you normally write. Or maybe it’s so difficult that you don’t know if you can do it.
I have two words for you: Do it!
Just do it.
Yes, maybe people will make bad inferences about you. But let’s be honest they can do that from your pretty, innocent poem about flowers.
And maybe it’s completely different and your normal readers — if you have readers — will be completely put off and decide never to read anything else you write.
It’s entirely possible. We live in profoundly stupid times. But this thing you want to write, if you really want to — need to write it — is going to distort everything else you write until you give in and write it.
And if you are truly terrified of releasing it, do it under a pen name. but don’t use something like Ima Nidiot, because you risk having that one book go big and your being known as Ms. Nidiot the rest of your life. (Or Mr. Which will make the Ima really weird.)
And what if you just aren’t up to it?
Well, this might absolutely be true. It’s the eighth time I’m rewriting my current affliction. And I don’t mean I rewrote it. No. Each time I took a different approach, left the other versions in the drawer and started fresh.
Now I actually know how to do it, except it’s taking me forever as is.
So. If you try and you either can’t finish it, or finish it but know it’s not good, you can put in the drawer, do another few — dozen– novels and then you can write it again, and that time right. The waiting and writing other stuff is needed. Sometimes you really feel you need to write something but you aren’t ready. You haven’t learned enough. And in this field you learn by doing.
But trying to write is important too, because it teaches your subconscious how short you still are.
Now take a deep breath, and go do it.
Mad Genius Club 
15 responses to “Write it!”
I understand that advice is directed at writing and writers, but, doncha know, it holds true across much of life.
The advantage of writing is if you make a mistake, it almost certainly won’t have you end up in the hospital (probably).
But I don’t have the many hands! I’ve got at least a dozen proto “gonnagitchuifudonriteme” stories busily building bees nests in my head. Besides, if I did Doofus would demand moar pets, because orangecat.
I really need to figure out how to dictate, so i can work while cleaning. i have so many novels waiting.
This is what I’ve been using for the “tell story out loud to be recorded to mp3” stage. I don’t know how it does with bluetooth (I would think you would need some kind of headset if you were carrying phone around in pocket while sweeping or mopping or such) , but it seems to do pretty recognizable audio quality, and has a cute and easy interface. Anyone reading this, always remember to name and save before closing a recording.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=me.jlabs.voicerecorder&hl=en_US
HOW many fingers has she got on her right hand? Must be a descendant of Count Rugen. 😀
John Ringo was nervous about first writing, then publishing, Ghost. If he hadn’t got over it, we wouldn’t have the Kildar series. Which would be a shame.
I’m still slogging away at local PC image generation. Some of the AI models such as the “realistic Illustrious” ones on CivitAI are starting to get better at hands, but I’ve also learned to get better at making prompts over time. Still a certain fraction of the images I generate have wrong number of fingers, an extra hand, a random body part sticking out of weird place, etc.
I wonder if we’re reached the point where we can play “Guess the AI” by what gets duplicated, or added in on the wrong place, and so on? “Oh, look, it must be Grok because there’s a spaceship where his left leg should be.” “No, I think it’s Mid Journey. See how many fingers she has on all three hands?”
When they’re mine, I fix the hands.
Ny sole attempt at manual inpainting in ComfyUI went… poorly. I have figured out how to get automated face and hand detailers working, but they won’t fix an anatomical error like wrong amount of fingers.
I got a head on backwards one time.
I didn’t even render it. It’s from pixabay.
The funny thing was, the w(n)ip is set in what is essentially a religious civil war between two factions of a Christian faith. And what they are arguing over is what the threshold of human is. But since the main character is a construct of the side that believes constructs cannot be human, I realized pretty early on, most people we see it and assume that its the standard Church == Evil setting. It’s not until much later that the reader would encounter the other faction, and even have the opportunity to discover that their arguments were equally as based in the same faith, just a different interpretation of it.
Ironically, that wasn’t what stopped things.
“Yes, maybe people will make bad inferences about you.”
I certainly hope so. ~:D It would be a shame to do all that work goring sacred cows and not have them take offense.
“I am shocked — shocked! — to find that you are offending the perpetually offended!” 😀
So I need to write the next halfway decent MCU movie: Dreadpool Versus The Capinator?
(I’m joking. Still, fatigue remains a hell of a drug, and it might not actually be worse than Disney’s fingers in the pie.)