Picture this:
At work, you go on about your day, flow with the motions, do what youāre paid to do and some more if youāre a good employee. I sure am not, and while I stand behind that bar counter, I tend to fall into a little dream world of unrelated words and stories playing out all around me.
Not now, of course, now I just taking up space while the world falls apart around me. Huh, that could make a great dystopian game. Mental note.
Thereās a regular sitting by the window. I know a lot about him, heās a nice guy, but I donāt really know him. Drunken rambles are exaggerated at best. How would I get to know him - if the situation arises, how can I play out a conversation like that? Mental note taken. Hu-man in-ter-act-ion. Somewhat a weak skill for me, and no one wants to be treated to the āservice industry voiceā.
So I listen to another table, talking about their day. Fender bender, drama, how will that affect them? How long will they hang onto that anxiety a mechanicās bill will give them? Itās individual, of course, because I would freak out completely. But theyāre not me, and have a whole different thought process. How can I properly convey different personalities without them melding into something I would say or do? Accidental self-inserts are my bane, I admit.
I drive past a garrison every day I go home. I see training, Iāve been a military man myself. Would that interest people? But usually we write about a broad system, or whatās used in the great U.S of A. I have no clue how to write about the army over there, Finland doesnāt even have authorization for submarines for godās sake.
Dystopian miliary? Where would it be set? A thousand years from now, another reality? The drive home is a daze, the entire day is filled with mental notes, half already forgotten only to come back to me just before falling asleep.
Itās a long post for sure, but for my first one I wanted to make something bigger, and this is it; at 2am while I dread the workday tomorrow since I know slow days bring daydreaming, and thatās still a blessing and a curse. Iām an imaginative person, everything around me I can spin into a story. Wouldāve made a great bard back in the day, but now Iām stuck with either a blank Word page, or handwritten notes connected by a red line that doesnāt lead anywhere.
I look at topics here, at various WIP games, and Iām awestruck. Consistent ideas that make sense, that make me anticipate a finished game years before theyāre even out. You who have a set story in mind, and go for it. How do they do that, I wonder, while casually trying to hide endless scripts that Iāve abandoned over the years, either too extravagant or bland in my own eyes.
How do they keep the motivation? Mine comes in bursts, a surprise visit maybe once or twice a month, and itās mountains of notes all over again. Then itās mellow. Itās slow and tedious and words donāt make sense, and I burn down the worldās Iāve created.
How do you stay on track? How do you keep yourself content with the story youāre writing without being pulled into a rabbit hole of endless ideas and unrelated aesthetics that might fit the world if you really, really squint at it?
Truly, Iām like a defective sponge that only sucks up ideas, and canāt for the life of me release them, on paper or otherwise.
Oh. TL;DR. How do you keep your ideas from blending together? How do you keep on track what you want in a story? How are you so awesome? Notepads donāt work, Pinterest boards are cluttered, why is there a normal horse in my sci-fi dystopian wasteland. Am I even in the right category? Sweet anxiety how you return to me.
Also, hi! Shouldāve started with that, I bet. Rydinger, 23, bartender by day (and night, I guess), wannabe writer at any given time Iām not pouring shots or pulling my cats off the curtains. English isnāt my native tongue so skim over the worst of faulty grammar or jumbled sentence structures. Swedish brain sometimes does doof.
