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Hello. Former lurker returning from a long absence. I was known as Smoke67 before, but that name carries some unpleasant memories from my teen years, so I made a new account a while back. Not that it matters much; my only contribution here was a single introductory post in this section here.
I'll try to provide some semblance of a brief version of my complicated yet admittedly not very interesting story.
I am a completely self-taught writer who relies mostly on instinct to get by. I've been writing since age 6, but I didn't really get serious about it until about 12 or so. Of course, by "serious" I mean "no longer deliberately ripping off plots and characters from whatever I happen to like at the time." I write mostly fantasy with science-fiction elements mixed in, along with about half a dozen sub-genres which makes categorizing my work a headache in its own right.
Unfortunately, there are a few major problems that pop up when I try to keep a novel going. I suffer from a number of mental issues including social anxiety and depression (probably ADD as well but that is not officially diagnosed as of yet.)"
There's also the little issue of having two separate personalities, one of which has absolutely no self-esteem as a writer and is so easily discouraged by his perceived unoriginality that he loses all motivation to write for long periods of time.
The other one (who is typing this, if you couldn't tell) really doesn't give half a crap about what anyone thinks of him or what he does. This only serves to stir up internal conflict and further hinders our progress as writers as we fight among ourselves about every aspect of our work. As a result, we've been working on the same story for about... oh, 7 years maybe? And we're barely past chapter 1, although we do have the entire course of the story outlined.
So this brings me to my current situation. A long time ago I was posting the first draft of my story elsewhere for feedback, and while I had only a handful of dedicated readers, their support and anticipation kept me motivated to keep working. I still took a month to finish a chapter, but at least I was doing it.
Granted, the story was plagued with cliches and "homages" to popular culture, which ultimately led to my trashing of Draft 1 and starting over (I actually trashed it because I heard that you can't sell a novel as an original publication if it's already available on the internet for free, but it was in dire need of a rewrite anyway, so...)
Anyway. I finally got back to work on Draft 1.5 of this book of mine this year, and what I really need to finish it is some sense of accountability for my work; that is, to feel that if I get lazy or insecure and drop the story again, someone, somewhere, will know I'm slacking off.
Besides, I do like this place. I could just never push myself to post anything because of my aforementioned social anxiety. Lurking for years without actually doing anything here... yeah, my head is a mess.
Well, that's about it. It's 4:00 AM where I am now and I'd really like to wrap this up, so... goodnight, good morning, or whatever applies to you at this hour. I will return when my mind is a bit more focused.
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