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Writing Tips - Beating Perfectionism

1. Recognising writing perfectionism. It’s not usually as literal as “This isn’t 100% perfect and so it is the worst thing ever”, in my experience it usually sneaks up more subtly. Things like where you should probably be continuing on but if you don’t figure out how to word this paragraph better it’s just going to bug you the whole time, or where you’re growing demotivated because you don’t know how to describe the scene 100% exactly as you can imagine it in your head, or things along those lines where your desire to be exact can get in the way of progression. In isolated scenarios this is natural, but if it’s regularly and notably impacting your progress then there’s a more pressing issue

2. Write now, edit later. Easier said than done, which always infuriated me until I worked out how it translates into practice; you need to recognise what the purpose of this stage of the writing process is and when editing will hinder you more than help you. Anything up to and including your first draft is purely done for structural and creative purposes, and trying to impose perfection on a creative process will naturally stifle said creativity. Creativity demands the freedom of imperfection

3. Perfection is stagnant. We all know that we have to give our characters flaws and challenges to overcome since, otherwise, there’s no room for growth or conflict or plot, and it ends up being boring and predictable at best - and it’s just the same as your writing. Say you wrote the absolute perfect book; the perfect plot, the perfect characters, the perfect arcs, the perfect ending, etc etc. It’s an overnight bestseller and you’re discussed as a literary great for all time. Everyone, even those outside of your target demographic, call it the perfect book. Not only would that first require you to turn the perfect book into something objective, which is impossible, but it would also mean that you would either never write again, because you can never do better than your perfect book, or you’ll always write the exact same thing in the exact same way to ensure constant perfection. It’s repetitive, it’s boring, and all in all it’s just fearful behaviour meant to protect you from criticism that you aren’t used to, rather than allowing yourself to get acclimated to less than purely positive feedback

4. Faulty comparisons. Comparing your writing to that of a published author’s is great from an analytical perspective, but it can easily just become a case of “Their work is so much better, mine sucks, I’ll never be as good as them or as good as any ‘real’ writer”. You need to remember that you’re comparing a completely finished draft, which likely underwent at least three major edits and could have even had upwards of ten, to wherever it is you’re at. A surprising number of people compare their *first* draft to a finished product, which is insanity when you think of it that way; it seems so obvious from this perspective why your first attempt isn’t as good as their tenth. You also end up comparing your ability to describe the images in your head to their ability to craft a new image in your head; I guarantee you that the image the author came up with isn’t the one their readers have, and they’re kicking themselves for not being able to get it exactly as they themselves imagine it. Only the author knows what image they’re working off of; the readers don’t, and they can imagine their own variation which is just as amazing

5. Up close and too personal. Expanding on the last point, just in general it’s harder to describe something in coherent words than it is to process it when someone else prompts you to do so. You end up frustrated and going over it a gazillion times, even to the point where words don’t even look like words anymore. You’ve got this perfect vision of how the whole story is supposed to go, and when you very understandably can’t flawlessly translate every single minute detail to your satisfaction, it’s demotivating. You’re emotionally attached to this perfect version that can’t ever be fully articulated through any other medium. But on the other hand, when consuming other media that you didn’t have a hand in creating, you’re viewing it with perfectly fresh eyes; you have no ‘perfect ideal’ of how everything is supposed to look and feel and be, so the images the final product conjures up become that idealised version - its no wonder why it always feels like every writer except you can pull off their visions when your writing is the only one you have such rigorous preconceived notions of

6. That’s entertainment. Of course writing can be stressful and draining and frustrating and all other sorts of nasty things, but if overall you can’t say that you ultimately enjoy it, you’re not writing for the right reasons. You’ll never take true pride in your work if it only brings you misery. Take a step back, figure out what you can do to make things more fun for you - or at least less like a chore - and work from there

7. Write for yourself. One of the things that most gets to me when writing is “If this was found and read by someone I know, how would that feel?”, which has lead me on multiple occasions to backtrack and try to be less cringe or less weird or less preachy or whatever else. It’s harder to share your work with people you know whose opinions you care about and whose impressions of you have the potential of shifting based on this - sharing it to strangers whose opinions ultimately don’t matter and who you’ll never have to interact with again is somehow a lot less scary because their judgements won’t stick. But allowing the imaginary opinions of others to dictate not even your finished project, but your unmoderated creative process in general? Nobody is going to see this without your say so; this is not the time to be fussing over how others may perceive your writing. The only opinion that matters at this stage is your own

8. Redirection. Instead of focusing on quality, focusing on quantity has helped me to improve my perfectionism issues; it doesn’t matter if I write twenty paragraphs of complete BS so long as I’ve written twenty paragraphs or something that may or may not be useful later. I can still let myself feel accomplished regardless of quality, and if I later have to throw out whole chapters, so be it

9. That’s a problem for future me. A lot of people have no idea how to edit, or what to look for when they do so, so having a clear idea of what you want to edit by the time the editing session comes around is gonna be a game-changer once you’re supposed to be editing. Save the clear work for when you’re allocating time for it and you’ll have a much easier and more focused start to the editing process. It’ll be more motivating than staring blankly at the intimidating word count, at least

10. The application of applications. If all else fails and you’re still going back to edit what you’ve just wrote in some struggle for the perfect writing, there are apps and websites that you can use that physically prevent you from editing your work until you’re done with it. If nothing else, maybe it can help train you away from major edits as you go

#writing

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this is by far my favorite safety/warning sign btw. they really went off with this one

#misc

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Caves are weirder and more varied than you think

#writing #inspiration #landscape

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Virtu Aoidos set~ 🏹

Buy Print

#ffxiv #final fantasy xiv #hythlodaeus #ffxiv hythlodaeus #fanart

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✧ PRODUCTION UPDATE ✧

・New schedule and shipping address changes・

Due to manufacturing errors and a few of our items needing to be remade, The timeline has changed.

The ship date has been moved to the later part of May 2024

What are we waiting on? ✨

The Zines, T T Cards, and Playmats are finishing production or currently in transit.

Everything else has arrived safely and is ready to be packed up and shipped out 🐥

T T Cards ✨

The cards took a bit longer than expected to finish

There were printer delays that pushed us beyond Chinese New Year and then manufacturer maintenance further delayed our items. But, they have finished and are on their way!

🐥 They look stunning! 🐥

New Arrivals ✨

These last couple months were a rollercoaster with errors and delays that needed attention + many new items arriving.

✨ Enamel Pins, Charms, Washi, Stickers, and Art Prints have arrived safely ✨

✨UPDATED TIMELINE✨

MAY 2024 - PREORDERS SHIP JUL 2024 - AFTERSALE STARTS AUG 2024 - AFTERSALE ENDS AUG 2024 - AFTERSALE SHIPS

✨ADDRESS CHANGE✨

If you need to change your shipping address or if you sent a request and never got a response from me please send me a dm or email

Thank you so much for all your support and patience during the production 🙏 It's been a rollercoaster but Untamed 2 is almost ready!

A more detailed update is available on the project website.

#ffxiv #final fantasy xiv #fanzine #ff zine #ffxiv zine #untamed 2

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Frieren coin pouch design

#sousou no frieren #fanart #frieren

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Frieren - Thanks for the Journey Definitely my favorite anime this last season, sad it's over now it got me so emotional!

#frieren #sousou no frieren #fanart

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Writing Game: Drabble

A drabble is a work of fiction that has exactly 100 words. Can you get a whole scene, maybe even a whole story across with the limited amount of words to use?

Choose a prompt from the drabble lists and then write a short piece with precisely 100 words.

Have fun!

#writing challenge #drabble game #writing game #writing #prompts

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Shout out to this fuckin' Looney-Tunes-ass circle wipe, ahahaha~

#dungeon meshi #dunmeshi

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The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

🎬 Peter Jackson

+ IMDb trivia

#lotr #omg i didnt know some of these xDDD

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So you know how the ship name for Frieren x Himmel is Frimmel? My sister and I messed around in Google translate and apparently the word "forever" in German is für immer, which when pronounced (again, according to Google translate) sounds very very similar to Frimmel

Do with that as you will

#sousou no frieren #frimmel #frieren #himmel

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Person A: "Why am I the hero?"

Person B: "Better question: if you had to choose between me or the whole world, who would you choose?"

Person A: "..."

Person B: "Exactly that. That's why you are the hero."

#writing #characters #dialogues #prompts

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hey its a bunch of folks!!

Standalone designs I created for the tag charms

-

charms available for pre-order here

#ffxiv #final fantasy xiv #endwalker #fanart

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30! 😊

thank youuu for the ask 😊 (sorry for the late answer! ^^;;)

30. share a fic you're especially proud of

hm, i have a couple fics i'm especially proud of but they're part of ongoing zine projects, so I'll say one of my newest fics Divine Lover of the Moon -- something i wrote as part of the Fantastic Fauxlore: FFXIV Mini Bang about star-crossed lovers between a human and a goddess (Oschon/Menphina :3). I worked on it for around five months, and it's the longest single-chapter fic I've ever written (just shy from 20K lol). Plus it's a half original take on the ship, taking inspirations from various folklores around the world. It's far from perfect, I know, but I'm rather proud that I managed to finish something huge. This was a passion project, and it really means a lot to me 🥺

✨ send me a fic writer ask ✨

#ask meme #fic writer ask #ffxiv #oschon #menphina #oschon x menphina #menphina x oschon

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“I’ll just rest my eyes” is the biggest lie you’re going straight to snorkmimimi land

#misc #yea

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gave that characters quote generator a few tries

#crystal exarch #alphinaud #ffxiv #final fantasy xiv #shadowbringers #lmaoooooo #i saw this on twt before #still makes me laugh XD #fanart

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"a mere thousand years, and the era of humans will be here."

#frieren #serie #sousou no frieren #fanart