I love it when people you'd think would be more supportive end up being dismissive of my passion in writing stories. They haven't even seen my writing and already assume it won't go anywhere and I'm just laying about. I don't expect them to be supportive even, but to be flat out dismissive is a bit insulting.

It won't stop me from writing. I don't think anything can at this point. It is a passion that finds its way to my mind sooner or later. Like a calling that I can't ignore. I'd be making up stories even if I didn't write them down.

Truthfully, the best writing advice that I've been given has come through Brandon Sanderson... and it was just through him telling people how he writes stories. I would love to be able to be in a position like he is. He gave me that push to really write, to overcome some of my own doubts. Just to keep going with it, even if you only write at the weekend. Other things are trial and error. But there really is only me on my writing team right now.

On my best day, I managed to write over 10,000 words. I've done this twice in my life at least. I hoped that I'd be able to be in a position to get back into this swing this year but it hasn't happened. Mostly because I'm distracted with other life things and the stress of them. But also because I need to do more research for the details of my story. It's easier to write when I know what I'm going to write, when I've got notes to go on about a world detail and I can get that into writing in a way that shows. It's just about finding what works, what will work for the next writing session.

Also, I don't like this argument about how I haven't finished a novel yet. Then people will actually believe this can be a thing. Technically, I've written more than a novel's worth. It's just not enough to finish a big epic fantasy series. Or I've struggled with finishing it, even when I have the beats. Even if I finish the novel, there will be another reason to say this won't work. Like not being published. I get why people are like this, even I've gone through this for my own writing. It's not useful.

People are very quick to tell you why something won't work out for you... less quick to give you the support and advice that you really need to know. Less quick to give you the space you need to write. Problem is, most people aren't writers themselves when they give advice. So they aren't setting you up to succeed. This goes for most things.

@sim The serious workman. - Do not talk about giftedness, inborn talents! One can name great men of all kinds who were very little gifted. They acquired greatness, became 'geniuses' (as we put it), through qualities the lack of which no one who knew what they were would boast of: they all pos­sessed that seriousness of the efficient workman which first learns to con­struct the parts properly before it ventures to fashion a great whole; they allowed themselves time for it, because they took more pleasure in making the little, secondary things well than in the effect of a dazzling whole. The recipe for becoming a good novelist, for example, is easy to give, but to carry it out presupposes qualities one is accustomed to over­ look when one says 'I do not have enough talent.' One has only to make a hundred or so sketches for novels, none longer than two pages but of such distinctness that every word in them is necessary; one should write down anecdotes each day until one has learned how to give them the most pregnant and effective form; one should be tireless in collecting and describing human types and characters; one should above all relate things to others and listen to others relate, keeping one's eyes and ears open for the effect produced on those present, one should travel like a landscape painter or costume designer; one should excerpt for oneself out of the individual sciences everything that will produce an artistic effect when it is well described, one should, finally, reflect on the motives of human actions, disdain no signpost to instruction about them and be a collector of these things by day and night. One should continue in this many-sided exercise some ten years: what is then created in the work­ shop, however, will be fit to go out into the world. - What, however, do most people do? They begin, not with the parts, but with the whole. Per­haps they chance to strike a right note, excite attention and from then on strike worse and worse notes, for good, natural reasons. - Sometimes, when the character and intellect needed to formulate such a life-plan are lacking, fate and need take their place and lead the future master step by step through all the stipulations of his trade.

@skells This is a good point. As a writer, you need to acquire all the various parts that create a whole story. This takes lots of research and experiencing the world or the past in books, the imagination requires that we are constantly learning new things to be inspired by and then writing about them. When we get stuck, it means that we need to acquire more of this. I tend to find that reality is stranger than fiction and the best inspiration for the imagination.