July 2024's Writer Support Thread

Can be a symptom or be a real independent mental issue in conjunction with lots of other issues.

I am so picky about this because all here have been hearing about a lot of mental health problems being brush off as minor league symptoms.

It is true that for most people is just symptom of another problems. But it can also be a phobia.

So if it is persistent please people try to get professional help

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I think writerā€™s block is mostly a stress reaction for me. Also may sometimes be a result for my brain simply shutting down the writing process because Iā€™ve focused on other things so much that it priotizes them, I certainly find it difficult to shift focus these days.

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That is often what happens with me - during a lot of 2020 and early 2021 I couldnā€™t do much writing at all because of stress from the pandemic. I also find that when Iā€™m stressed, I can find myself going in the other direction and try to ā€˜push throughā€™ with writing which results in fatigue and burnout. At those points thereā€™s no way of doing creative work and I have no choice but to have a break and do whatā€™s needed to recover. (Iā€™m fortunate that itā€™s been a while since thatā€™s happened to me but itā€™s definitely something I keep in mind a lot as I want to be careful to avoid it.)

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Thatā€™s true - I canā€™t do anything creative if Iā€™m too stressed, either. Which can be a very vicious circle if the thing Iā€™m overstressed about is not meeting a deadline on something I need to be creative about!

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I am now in a very thoughtful mood. When the Halloween jam is over, Is the forum ready or interested in a jam focused on mature content open, honest and fair to ensure be lgbtq+ friendly?

The forum is booming with this topics and wips even. But maybe it is because I am old, I found a very immature tendency to cover those topics and how are handle to point sometimes I think I am in whatpad for an error or something.

I think a mature event should be really good for the mature content. Still, I am probably not the person that forum members want to see doing something like that. So for know is just fuel for my thoughts nd another nail in my coffin of things I want to do but I know nobody wants me.

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Yes.

The only reason I can think of, that people wouldnā€™t want you to do such a thing, would be worrying about you burning yourself out, Mara.

I could maybe be interested in hosting some sort of casual jam at some point, but Iā€™m quite unsure what exactly is involved in doing so.
And I also wouldnā€™t want to step on your toes.

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You wouldnā€™t. It is great that there are a lot of events now! If you want to do an event You can ask me for help and support for small details and all that. it has a lot of work, but it is not difficult to do. If I can do so anyone can.

Maybe you want to focus in social media and all that there is no correct way to do it.

I am free to contact anyone that wants to do a jam or something like that as help

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I donā€™t think social media is in any way my forte, unfortunately :sweat_smile:

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Same. I prefer focus on the forum and try to encourage and helping people here. But People who focus on social networking can also be beneficial and helping to get a network and fame.

There is not correct way to promote and focus on how to do an event.

Personally, I always tried to focus on two things.

ā˜…Encourage People to start a new project mostly newbies, but also veterans who are or tired or burned out .

ā˜…Learn to handle a deadline and the whole process of beta testing. Reason why I make the writers asking for private beta in a thread.

The not scores and judges is another. Popular vote is just to encourage people to read the games. And it is a top five or three so others donā€™t feel bad for being last.

But that is my view. Many jams for more advanced writers are really really good and successful.

The important part is knowing since moment one what is your focus as a jam host.

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I figure you all might get a chuckle out of this.

My husband was planning to go to Walmart for a new tire today, but he was called in to work. He promised to text me to let me know his plans.

Him: Iā€™ll be off at 5

Me: And then youā€™re going to get a tire?

Him: Yes, tire

Me: Do you know about when youā€™ll be home?

Him: Probably after 7

Him (at the tire place): They say it will take 1 hours.

Me: They say it will take ${tiretime} @{(tiretime = 1) hour|hours}.

Him: ā€¦ what?

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For now had a solid short-medium session. Reached to ~ 4.7K words in Chapter IV.

Since itā€™s sort of a informative part I am writing I am adding some fake_choices to not to disrupt the flow in about every 400 - 500 words. Based on choices minor stat additions.

How you progress with such phases in your chapters? Adding too much unnecessary choices will also feels like incursion.

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In todayā€™s news, Iā€™m kinda wanting to continue developing further the system Iā€™ve used in testing for my Masterā€™s Thesisā€¦ guess thatā€™s as good a reason to learn C++ as any. (I also want to develop further the system I designed for my Bachelorā€™s, and also create myself a story-crafting softwareā€¦ argh.)

Making them help the player to characterize their MC should help to have them feel not unnecessary, Iā€™d think.

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I am trying to help people in YouTube and forums to make Fallout London run.

Well, today someone has called me ā€œDude, What you are smoking, Fallout 4 hasnā€™t had any bugs or problems at launch lol. Donā€™t lie.ā€

FALLOUT 4 HASNā€™T ANY BUGS AT LAUNCH :rofl:

Yeah, and I am the Queen. That person made my day. I mean that is even hilarious to say with current version almost a decade after lol.

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You are doing Godā€™s work. Iā€™m still waiting for some patches to be done (actually, Iā€™m just putting it off) before I try and make it work on Steam.

ā€œDude, What you are smoking, Fallout 4 hasnā€™t had any bugs or problems at launch lol. Donā€™t lie.ā€ - Iā€™m pretty sure you just had a message from Todd Howard.

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The dude had to deal with a wall of text summarizing Fallout 4 launch issues for a very Enraged sarcastic me. From The frame drop in Boston downtown. To the Triangle of death if you do settlements in the area of santuary and red rocket to The several factions uncapable to build the damn pieces to de srar trek device. Only few of course, I can keep going a decade.

Trying to discuss about Bethesda with someone that literaly her first attempts to learn English were as 7 years old playing Arena same launch yearā€¦

I am Bethesda fan girl. But damn If their games are buggy I can talk hours about them.

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Good luck! People like that are one reason why I can do tech support only in very small doses. (The other reason is that I canā€™t deal for long with people who refuse to even try to learn things by themselves before I get totally exhausted.) I admire you.

(ā€œTriangle of Deathā€ sounds like a very Fallout-y location though, if it was a map and not a technical issue. I kinda want to use that now, hmm.)

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It is a wonderful name to use. And the reason of name would made a wonderful terror story.

There are three settlement you can buy very nearby. And there are 3 first you see normally. If you built so much there your game starts going slow in the area almost going slow mo in consoles.

Imagine a space station so crowded and overpopulated that the artificial gravity is collapsing so each of the three sections try to destroy the other to keep their section fine.

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Iā€™d love to see that story. (I am imagining it right now. Great visual.)

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In toipic:

Huh, good question. Usuallly I try to have most choices tweek a variable here or there, though sometimes I wonder if these variables will actually ever have much of a real effect on the narative . . . but as I go further into making the games I usually find a way for it to matter and am happy that I bothered earlier.

For the later matter of feeling to intruding, Iā€™ve been thinking of adding options for less content for those players that want to skip less relevent choices, but actually implementing that is going to wait until my game books are further along. For myself, I say give me all the choices, even if they are irrelevent - I want to see and picture my character and their world!

That stated, I know a lot of creators use plenty of false choices and as a player I usually donā€™t notice these and am happy enough with the narritive, so I think at least if a certain amount of your narritive are real choice points, you are safe to do it. I wonder if thereā€™s like a sweet spot for how many choices need to really matter, if your going with that methology.

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Little of topic, however, on trying to work on my linear fiction, I find that Microsoft word now requires that I sign in every time I try to use it and that I have to be online to use it. Has anyone else experienced this? For various reasons I like not being signed onto the internet when Iā€™m trying to work on stuff - somewhat similar to my question from a few months back I guess, but what alternatives to word do you guys like? Specifically looking for one where I donā€™t have to be online eveytime Iā€™m using it. I think some of you had suggested Scrivner if I remember correctly - does anyone know if I have to be online to use Scrivner?

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I can use it fine offline, after Iā€™ve signed in. :thinking: That sounds weird. I mean, obviously they have to verify you have an active subscription, but still, one would assume they would be able to store that info locally.

One of the reasons I prefer LibreOffice though.

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