The BSN writers club

Id love to get something published one day, I write almost every day I have sooooooo much stuff on my pc


My biggest problem is confidence I guess, Ive rarely shown anyone my work, at all, and in stuff like rps I kinda decrease the quality of what I do on purpose so no one actually gets to read how I actually write... sounds stupid, but I dont like showing people... letting people read my work I find is quite an intimate thing and idk

probably but in the end i suppose it matters if you want to sell your work. Afterall I've heard from several different writers if you want to be a writer...read (or play games) to see what sells.

Confidence is definitely an issue.  It's a double-edged sword in a sense because writing really is so intimate and is such a part of the writer.  We put so much of ourselves into it that it can be hard to pull away and distance ourselves to the point where we can take criticism of the writing as not being criticism of ourselves personally.  My first workshop in grad school, I nearly dropped out.  I felt so out of place and didn't know why I was bothering, and felt like I was worthless as a writer.  It didn't happen overnight, but I did start to overcome a lot of that and try to be more objective and realize that critique of my writing wasn't a value judgement of me as a person.

It's definitely hard to find someone to trust with your work.  When my mom wanted to read my thesis I nearly died inside (and I was an adult!) but if I ended up publishing it she would have read it anyway.  And that was the thesis-- the final-as-it-was-going-to-get-to-graduate draft, not even the rough drafts.  I think it's a process overall, and processes are best tackled in small steps.  Start with small goals and recognize your successes.  Find people that you can trust.  Read writing craft books.  In terms of giving and accepting feedback, I found Joni Cole's "Toxic Feedback" to be a complete game changer.

Also sometimes getting over that first threshold is the hardest.  The first workshop, the first rejection letter, the first troll or hater on your fic.  All in all, writing is a process, and all processes have steps

We're still waiting for you to write in three RPs. 

not entirely.

It's still writing.  I write up a lot of the new SOPs at my job (and edit the old ones as time allows) and while it's not very creative, I like revising sentences and steps for flow and consistency between write-ups.  Whether it's technical or fiction, with writing we're trying to communicate something.

Awww, this is a fun thread.

I've been a writer for a long time now, but a lot of my struggle is:

1. Finishing a damn story (usually a mix of lacking time or, when time is available, lacking motivation and/or being distracted by the shinies like gaming).

2. Getting bunches of ideas and being pulled in too many different directions by them (thus, contributing to # 1).

3. Occasionally suffering that self-confidence thing or envisioning how your work might possibly be criticized/piss off other people to the point of not wanting to bother anymore. Or feeling like your work/ideas are too similar or have already been done before by "better" authors, so why bother? Even though, in reality, there is nothing new under the sun so one shouldn't let that be a roadblock.

But you just gotta push through it. I often have to remind myself that I write because I enjoy it and write for myself first. Even if I never show it to another soul, I do it because I enjoy it. Then, if I feel like it has potential, I can think about editing/polishing it and setting it free to the world.

I have written some Dragon Age fanfic here: Fanfiction.net  It's largely gone on hiatus for now as I concentrate on original projects, but fanfiction is a dirty pleasure of mine.

I also worked together with a group in 2015/2016 that decided to do a short story anthology and self-publish it. This was the first serious writing venture I dove into after Mom's suicide back in 2012. When she died, I stopped writing altogether for a very long time. It was like it was sucked out of me during my grief and for years after. A friend of mine knew this about me and reached out to see if I wanted to give it a shot with her group, and I figured that if I could manage a short story, maybe I could start back to work on my novel and fanfics again. I managed two short stories - a sci-fi ("What Makes A Man") and a fantasy ("The Lady and the Dragon"), and I also tackled writing the foreword. You can find the info in this thread, which also provides a link to download the whole anthology for free: So, I helped write a thing and maybe you'll like it...

Currently, I'm engaged in a little bit different writing right now. A former BioWare dev who is a friend of mine is making their own indie game and approached me to see if I'd be interested in filling in some of the world lore with lore books for an in-game library, in a similar sort of style like the lore books in The Elder Scrolls series. I was in love with the idea and love reading game lore books and codices, so I'm currently working on that at the moment (as well as helping with editing the dialogues and such).

Concurrently, DragonScript - that writing group I joined for the "New Beginnings" short story anthology - just agreed to gear up for a second anthology, so I'll be working on two more short stories to contribute for that.

A few writing motivationals that are very true and should be kept in mind for everybody:

I write protocols and summary reports for pharma validation. *puffs chest*

It's a living.

best advice on writers block is to just write. I know easier said then done because writers block took me out for an hour and a half the other day. But if you just squeeze deep and force it out the words sometimes just start flowing. A trickle at first. And then a tsunami.

I know this is probably just me but sometimes I feel like a quick gander at social media helps clear the mind.  Resets the synapsis.  Its like being stuck on a really hard game and then you leave it for a month or two and then come back to it...you beat the game...but this is only a minute or two.  Granted sometimes I can get sucked into social media, so I don't recommend it for everything.  But sometimes it does work. 

Hey all.

Out of curiosity, how many words per chapter is considered "acceptable?" I've read fanfics that were word-heavy and they sometimes feel too much of a struggle to read, and yet some books (e.g. Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan series) can go on for pages and I'm still able to keep up with the flow.

Is it because some authors are too descriptive of the events/environment/characters' actions within the chapter? Again, in Clancy's Ryan series, he sometimes describes the technical aspects of various military hardware, which should be boring, but instead add to the overall story, the immersion.

This question comes up in a lot of writing groups I'm in, and the answer really varies depending on the story and the writer.  For me, personally, my chapters average 2000-3500 words, but that's just my average, and sometimes go below that or above it depending.  For me, a chapter is a collection of scenes that has a goal in mind that ends up contributing to the overall story.  There's a particular event that happens, or something that changes the character, or a decision that needs to be made.  I think so much really depends on the author, and what they're working to accomplish in each chapter.  One fic author I read has chapters that range from 6-10k words each, and it's because they're using the chapter to focus on one large chunk of the character's life and development at a time. 

Personally, I write and prefer overall to read shorter chapters that can be read in a sitting; like, hey, I have a bit of time before I have to get somewhere so I'll just read a chapter.