“I need to be successful to be worth anything, just like I need to be pretty to be worth anything, just like I need to be a genius to be worth anything.” <- as long as you believe that you're going to keep sabotaging yourself. You're so self aware that you could do great things if you only let those things flow, while ignoring your self consciousness. FTR i've never been able to do the things i want to do when i push myself to do them, only when i accept that i don't have to force them i'm able to do honest, real artistic work.
And nope, not wasting my breath, typing without breathing is not difficult. I have to stop this comment now or i'll die of lack of air tho.
All the projects sound awesome… especially the webcomic.
None of it sounds stupid at all.
I remember when I was in high school, I had all sorts of projects I wanted to do:
I wanted to write a novel. I never did, though I started quite a few of them and never finished.
I also wanted to write a book of poetry. (Which I did, actually; it just never got published.)
My high school class voted me as “most likely to become famous for poems and stories.”
Never happened.
I also wanted to write music for symphonies and/or large ensembles and have it performed in front of an audience of hundreds.
That actually HAS happened a few times, and I’m still pleasantly surprised. It was fun and exciting and humbling all at the same time.
So I guess my long drawn-out point is that some of the things I wanted DID happen, but other things didn’t. And it took decades for the things to happen.
If I’d given up in high school, none of it would ever have happened.
I know you told us not to “waste our breath” on you, but I still think you’re worth it so I’m spending my breath on you anyway. 🙂
Congratulations on having your music performed in front of an audience of hundreds, I can undestand it happening after listening to your compositions here.
Hoping to hear more.
And yep, Whistky: you are worth ‘wasting’ our breath on you. 🙂
I like what Cordless sais: most things take decades to be done…
Ok, anyway you are quite mature for a 17 year old, and a quite comprenhensive one.
I personally like the idea of the epic poem. Sounds too… Idk epic. Silly to say, but any way…
And yes you will be like this at 27 or 37, and yet you won´t, but the good things you have will be also there and at the same time they wont. Hard to explain.
Don’t expect success as it doesn’t exist as it used to be understood. And you better define success and check that definition twice before you give your life for it. As also the concept of genius.
I am a disappointment in all aspects of life and yet life isn’t what it was supposed to be either, so… at the end we live in a post-modern society, and relativism is hard to understand. There are no absolute concepts and you are the one that defines your own parameters and your own points of reference.
Beat yourself, but know that you are doing it as a decision, and that it is not your only option.
JS
I am in a weird mood today, like a pendulum.
Sorry :/
Thank you for your advice and your input, especially that part about defining success and genius before giving my life to them. That is…a very, very wise admonishment. I never thought about that.
I have to disagree with you, though, about the whole relativism thing. I don’t believe in relativism. A lot of people are surprised to know that about me; they don’t understand why an intelligent person holds “unintelligent” beliefs. But I’ve learned to not let that bother me. Or at least I try to.
Don’t apologize for your weird mood. I was in a weird mood when I made this post.
Successful is something that society defines, some spend their whole lives chasing that carrot, cuz apparently it leads to something really great. I don’t know .
i like your ideas.
i have no advice as i have continually started and never finished things over the years. I wrote a ‘novel’ once, i thought it was good, the teacher said it was boring, so I kinda thought, why write anymore…. So i began reading or skimming through other novels. I feel the only way is to cater to other people. Doesn’t matter if i like unicorns, it only matters if others do
I hope you can continue, just keep writing the way you are, just do it. Don’t think ‘what if…?’ just write it how you like until its finished
It probably leads to nothing. Chasing the carrot, I mean. Because we all return to dust in the end, no matter what. So what’s the point in chasing that—or any—carrot?
Sorry. I’m being a moody pseudo-nihilist today.
And thank you for the compliment. Validation fuels me.
Whoa whoa whoa— hold the phone. Your teacher trashed your novel because it was “too boring”??? Didn’t she ever read “Catcher in the Rye”? That book’s considered a classic, and a work of art, and it has pretty much no plot whatsoever! Camus’s “The Stranger” is considered a poignant philosophical masterpiece, and that book is literally so boring that even the main character isn’t all that concerned with anything that’s going on around him.
Jeez. Your teacher needs a lesson in literary criticism.
And you’re right about the whole catering thing. That’s why it’s so difficult for me to decide on basic project concepts. In a lot of ways, I’m really precocious and “mature”, but on the other hand, parts of my heart and my head are so much younger than they should be. I have trouble writing for an audience, because it’s hard for me to keep my adult tendencies out of my children’s stories and vice versa.
whiskered-fish, do your projects require a lot of help from others? if so they are hard to materialize, i’ve done that several times and failed due to the size of the undertaking, i’ve also made it work a few times 🙂 bands! but really i’ve succeeded in any undertaking i’ve done that didn’t require others to complete. if you don’t count things like painting, my paintings just sucked! 🙂
Rocketman, I was just thinking about that, actually. I try to avoid undertaking any project that I can’t do mostly or entirely on my own. In addition to being hopelessly pretentious, vain, ambitious, and insecure, I’m also a control-freak. (In case you couldn’t tell, I’m a real catch.) 😉
Do you mind if I play along?
Broken Hope – Sword and sorcery high fantasy tale about a religious institution fearing the decline of its influence inciting war between neighboring kingdoms with the goal of then ending the fighting using fanatics born and bred in service of the church as avatars of warrior angels of myth who brought peace to the realm of man. Unfortunately for EVERYONE, said fanatics started seeing themselves as the literal reincarnations of said angels. It eventually got too melodramatic and I found I didn’t really like any of the characters.
The Hunters – This thing was an utter Frankenstein monster throughout. At one point; a group of people with psychological disorders of various flavours gather online for support, forming bonds and friendships as they go through treatment. However, one individual became jealous of the others’ progress as well as frightened of being perceived as toxic and left behind and ignored by the others and began finding and killing the others in the group, thinking they were abandoning the principles upon which the group was formed. This was presented entirely through correspondences between the different members of the group, and I never really felt I was doing it right. Characters kept changing, events kept changing, and I came to think I didn’t just not like the whole thing, but that it was BAD. Eventually, it metamorphosed into…
The Valiant – More fantasy, though my inability to settle on high or low was part of why I abandoned it. After years of being away from each-other, three long-time friends are brought back together when one invites the other two to go on one last grand adventure. What lead to the initial separation was that A fell in love with B, while B fell in love with C, while C went and married someone else entirely and started a family. When C’s relationship became rocky, B thought it was her opportunity to bring the gang together again and profess her feelings. A could see what was happening and wanted to go along with bringing the gang back together, but felt sick about B’s ulterior motives. Honestly, I had incredible trouble figuring out where I was taking this. I could never decide what I wanted the conclusion to be, and I waffled with the setting until I got tired of the whole thing.
The Odyssey – A space-faring sci-fi tale about an advanced civilization that detected a signal sent by their god, and attempted to track its source. The big twist was that the civilization was advanced machine collectives who built themselves in their god’s (humanity’s) image, and humanity actually FLED their creation when they lost control of it. I never got far with this, and even in planning I didn’t know how much war I wanted to occur.
Jihad – More high fantasy, though just sword this time. Generations of War of Succession over control of the First Throne have left the great houses of the known world devastated. Now small skirmishes and raids are all any house dare engage in for fear of upsetting the status quo and ushering another all-out War of Succession. However the return of House Merdis, long thought destroyed and lost to history, is set to tear the balances of the houses apart, for Merdis seeks revenge, not the First Throne. This was started with a theme of epic war in mind, and that probably lead to its abandonment as well. Too much history and too many names, and again, a lack of an end game, led to this one going on long enough for me to lose interest in it.
Kitsune – Literally a night on the beach. A Shisa wakes up alone in the middle of the night, and finds her love, a Kitsune, staring at the sea. When she questions him about it, she hears the long tale of his first crush. The meta story I wanted to be the center of this was the long-lived fox searching for comfort in telling the story of chasing his first infatuation to his first love, as he knew his life-span far outlasted that of the Shisa’s. Eventually stopped working on it because intimidation of my own characters as well as completely effing up another culture’s mythology took so much time that I was able to get tired of working on this one, too.
Yeah, I can’t commit either. I liked writing , in part, because it specifically is something one can do on one’s own. These days, I find I can’t recognize the allure it once held.
Can I ask what you think hammered the lessons into you?
@TheValiant: I want to give you a more in-depth reply later, but in case I never get to, I just wanted to say that your ideas are pretty brilliant. I really enjoyed reading them. 🙂
I have never finished any of them. Well, except for very small projects, and for two times where I wrote an entire book. Both of those times, however, the books were supposed to be part of a trilogy. So I don’t consider those finished projects.
I don’t finish anything for all kinds of reasons. Usually it’s because I have to be in a certain mood or headspace to write certain things, and my moods/headspaces constantly change. Sometimes I shelve a project because I ran into a road block, like not having the right materials, being unable to overcome a certain plot-hole, or because I need to do further research before starting. Sometimes, it’s because I don’t consider myself “ready for” a project, or because I simply fall out of love with it, or because I think of a better project to do instead.
Sometimes it’s just because I’m too busy thinking about ending my life to concern myself with literally anything else.
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22 comments
“I need to be successful to be worth anything, just like I need to be pretty to be worth anything, just like I need to be a genius to be worth anything.” <- as long as you believe that you're going to keep sabotaging yourself. You're so self aware that you could do great things if you only let those things flow, while ignoring your self consciousness. FTR i've never been able to do the things i want to do when i push myself to do them, only when i accept that i don't have to force them i'm able to do honest, real artistic work.
And nope, not wasting my breath, typing without breathing is not difficult. I have to stop this comment now or i'll die of lack of air tho.
lol
All the projects sound awesome… especially the webcomic.
None of it sounds stupid at all.
I remember when I was in high school, I had all sorts of projects I wanted to do:
I wanted to write a novel. I never did, though I started quite a few of them and never finished.
I also wanted to write a book of poetry. (Which I did, actually; it just never got published.)
My high school class voted me as “most likely to become famous for poems and stories.”
Never happened.
I also wanted to write music for symphonies and/or large ensembles and have it performed in front of an audience of hundreds.
That actually HAS happened a few times, and I’m still pleasantly surprised. It was fun and exciting and humbling all at the same time.
So I guess my long drawn-out point is that some of the things I wanted DID happen, but other things didn’t. And it took decades for the things to happen.
If I’d given up in high school, none of it would ever have happened.
I know you told us not to “waste our breath” on you, but I still think you’re worth it so I’m spending my breath on you anyway. 🙂
Congratulations on having your music performed in front of an audience of hundreds, I can undestand it happening after listening to your compositions here.
Hoping to hear more.
And yep, Whistky: you are worth ‘wasting’ our breath on you. 🙂
I like what Cordless sais: most things take decades to be done…
Yeh I think the first one has legs, whiskered-fish.
Thanks, Fro-not-so-zen (clever name, btw, I like it). I’m trying to work on it some today. I guess I’m a glutton for punishment.
Ok, anyway you are quite mature for a 17 year old, and a quite comprenhensive one.
I personally like the idea of the epic poem. Sounds too… Idk epic. Silly to say, but any way…
And yes you will be like this at 27 or 37, and yet you won´t, but the good things you have will be also there and at the same time they wont. Hard to explain.
Don’t expect success as it doesn’t exist as it used to be understood. And you better define success and check that definition twice before you give your life for it. As also the concept of genius.
I am a disappointment in all aspects of life and yet life isn’t what it was supposed to be either, so… at the end we live in a post-modern society, and relativism is hard to understand. There are no absolute concepts and you are the one that defines your own parameters and your own points of reference.
Beat yourself, but know that you are doing it as a decision, and that it is not your only option.
JS
I am in a weird mood today, like a pendulum.
Sorry :/
Thank you for your advice and your input, especially that part about defining success and genius before giving my life to them. That is…a very, very wise admonishment. I never thought about that.
I have to disagree with you, though, about the whole relativism thing. I don’t believe in relativism. A lot of people are surprised to know that about me; they don’t understand why an intelligent person holds “unintelligent” beliefs. But I’ve learned to not let that bother me. Or at least I try to.
Don’t apologize for your weird mood. I was in a weird mood when I made this post.
Successful is something that society defines, some spend their whole lives chasing that carrot, cuz apparently it leads to something really great. I don’t know .
i like your ideas.
i have no advice as i have continually started and never finished things over the years. I wrote a ‘novel’ once, i thought it was good, the teacher said it was boring, so I kinda thought, why write anymore…. So i began reading or skimming through other novels. I feel the only way is to cater to other people. Doesn’t matter if i like unicorns, it only matters if others do
I hope you can continue, just keep writing the way you are, just do it. Don’t think ‘what if…?’ just write it how you like until its finished
It probably leads to nothing. Chasing the carrot, I mean. Because we all return to dust in the end, no matter what. So what’s the point in chasing that—or any—carrot?
Sorry. I’m being a moody pseudo-nihilist today.
And thank you for the compliment. Validation fuels me.
Whoa whoa whoa— hold the phone. Your teacher trashed your novel because it was “too boring”??? Didn’t she ever read “Catcher in the Rye”? That book’s considered a classic, and a work of art, and it has pretty much no plot whatsoever! Camus’s “The Stranger” is considered a poignant philosophical masterpiece, and that book is literally so boring that even the main character isn’t all that concerned with anything that’s going on around him.
Jeez. Your teacher needs a lesson in literary criticism.
And you’re right about the whole catering thing. That’s why it’s so difficult for me to decide on basic project concepts. In a lot of ways, I’m really precocious and “mature”, but on the other hand, parts of my heart and my head are so much younger than they should be. I have trouble writing for an audience, because it’s hard for me to keep my adult tendencies out of my children’s stories and vice versa.
The reasons its imprinted is cuz society tells us we need to be this or that…
ignore my dumb comments
Your comments are never dumb to me.
whiskered-fish, do your projects require a lot of help from others? if so they are hard to materialize, i’ve done that several times and failed due to the size of the undertaking, i’ve also made it work a few times 🙂 bands! but really i’ve succeeded in any undertaking i’ve done that didn’t require others to complete. if you don’t count things like painting, my paintings just sucked! 🙂
Rocketman, I was just thinking about that, actually. I try to avoid undertaking any project that I can’t do mostly or entirely on my own. In addition to being hopelessly pretentious, vain, ambitious, and insecure, I’m also a control-freak. (In case you couldn’t tell, I’m a real catch.) 😉
It is never too late to finish all of this. Or never finish it. The point to life is to continue creating.
Thanks Hazy.
I will answer the rest of these messages when I wake up.
Thanks for putting up with my whining, everyone.
Do you mind if I play along?
Broken Hope – Sword and sorcery high fantasy tale about a religious institution fearing the decline of its influence inciting war between neighboring kingdoms with the goal of then ending the fighting using fanatics born and bred in service of the church as avatars of warrior angels of myth who brought peace to the realm of man. Unfortunately for EVERYONE, said fanatics started seeing themselves as the literal reincarnations of said angels. It eventually got too melodramatic and I found I didn’t really like any of the characters.
The Hunters – This thing was an utter Frankenstein monster throughout. At one point; a group of people with psychological disorders of various flavours gather online for support, forming bonds and friendships as they go through treatment. However, one individual became jealous of the others’ progress as well as frightened of being perceived as toxic and left behind and ignored by the others and began finding and killing the others in the group, thinking they were abandoning the principles upon which the group was formed. This was presented entirely through correspondences between the different members of the group, and I never really felt I was doing it right. Characters kept changing, events kept changing, and I came to think I didn’t just not like the whole thing, but that it was BAD. Eventually, it metamorphosed into…
The Valiant – More fantasy, though my inability to settle on high or low was part of why I abandoned it. After years of being away from each-other, three long-time friends are brought back together when one invites the other two to go on one last grand adventure. What lead to the initial separation was that A fell in love with B, while B fell in love with C, while C went and married someone else entirely and started a family. When C’s relationship became rocky, B thought it was her opportunity to bring the gang together again and profess her feelings. A could see what was happening and wanted to go along with bringing the gang back together, but felt sick about B’s ulterior motives. Honestly, I had incredible trouble figuring out where I was taking this. I could never decide what I wanted the conclusion to be, and I waffled with the setting until I got tired of the whole thing.
The Odyssey – A space-faring sci-fi tale about an advanced civilization that detected a signal sent by their god, and attempted to track its source. The big twist was that the civilization was advanced machine collectives who built themselves in their god’s (humanity’s) image, and humanity actually FLED their creation when they lost control of it. I never got far with this, and even in planning I didn’t know how much war I wanted to occur.
Jihad – More high fantasy, though just sword this time. Generations of War of Succession over control of the First Throne have left the great houses of the known world devastated. Now small skirmishes and raids are all any house dare engage in for fear of upsetting the status quo and ushering another all-out War of Succession. However the return of House Merdis, long thought destroyed and lost to history, is set to tear the balances of the houses apart, for Merdis seeks revenge, not the First Throne. This was started with a theme of epic war in mind, and that probably lead to its abandonment as well. Too much history and too many names, and again, a lack of an end game, led to this one going on long enough for me to lose interest in it.
Kitsune – Literally a night on the beach. A Shisa wakes up alone in the middle of the night, and finds her love, a Kitsune, staring at the sea. When she questions him about it, she hears the long tale of his first crush. The meta story I wanted to be the center of this was the long-lived fox searching for comfort in telling the story of chasing his first infatuation to his first love, as he knew his life-span far outlasted that of the Shisa’s. Eventually stopped working on it because intimidation of my own characters as well as completely effing up another culture’s mythology took so much time that I was able to get tired of working on this one, too.
Yeah, I can’t commit either. I liked writing , in part, because it specifically is something one can do on one’s own. These days, I find I can’t recognize the allure it once held.
Can I ask what you think hammered the lessons into you?
OMFG theValiant, that is pure genius.
@TheValiant: I want to give you a more in-depth reply later, but in case I never get to, I just wanted to say that your ideas are pretty brilliant. I really enjoyed reading them. 🙂
1) The projects you don’t finish, why (don’t you finish them)?
2) The projects you do finish, why (do you finish them)?
I have never finished any of them. Well, except for very small projects, and for two times where I wrote an entire book. Both of those times, however, the books were supposed to be part of a trilogy. So I don’t consider those finished projects.
I don’t finish anything for all kinds of reasons. Usually it’s because I have to be in a certain mood or headspace to write certain things, and my moods/headspaces constantly change. Sometimes I shelve a project because I ran into a road block, like not having the right materials, being unable to overcome a certain plot-hole, or because I need to do further research before starting. Sometimes, it’s because I don’t consider myself “ready for” a project, or because I simply fall out of love with it, or because I think of a better project to do instead.
Sometimes it’s just because I’m too busy thinking about ending my life to concern myself with literally anything else.