Is it normal that i only ever think about fictional stories?

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I'm a writer and I love reading, but I never think about anything aside from that. I feel like I've disconnected from reality at times. It doesn't even have to be a story that I'm writing, I could be thinking about someone else's story and what they would do after the story has ended. I get so many new ideas to write about because of this, but they stack on top of each other and I never have time to write them all. I go to sleep thinking about what to write. I can't interact with people normally because I've kind of forgotten about everything reality-wise. I don't know. Is that weird?

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Based on 10 votes (7 yes)
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Comments ( 9 )
  • Boojum
    5 years ago

    I hear you, and I've experienced exactly what you describe.

    Which is not to say I think it's a healthy approach. Life should be about finding a balance between all the aspects that are open to us, not about obsessing on one particular thing.

    It is true that people who become really good at doing something usually spend a huge amount of time working on that thing, but writers in particular are susceptible to burn-out, not least because writing is usually a solitary, totally internal process.

    Most writers end up with loads of opening paragraphs, interesting scenes, half-finished plot outlines, off the cuff premises, and word sketches of intriguing characters in their desk drawer or on their hard drive, and most of them will never appear in a finished story. So you're completely normal there, too.

    I suggest that, even if you have to force yourself to do it, you need to figure out a way to take regular breaks and step away from the worlds you've created in your head. Make an effort to find a better balance, and you may find that your writing also improves.

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    • Levi_Ackerman_is_bae
      5 years ago

      Yeah. It's the only thing I really like doing, but I feel like I overdo it sometimes.
      And I feel like sometimes there's pressure for me to get stuff out there (even if there's no one actually trying to get me to put stuff out there). I mean, I'm almost out of high school, so I won't have a lot of time to write after that and even then I wouldn't get the chance to become a teen author.
      It's kind of hard to have all these ideas and not being able to put them down on paper because I sometimes have amazing ideas.
      That's probably accurate. My last year since this started happening, my writing style has started to get worse. I just thought it was because I wasn't writing enough or reading enough, so I started writing and reading more which helped a little, but then got worse.
      Thank you for the suggestion!

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      • Boojum
        5 years ago

        How do you know your writing has become worse? Are you sure that you're not just now able to look at it more critically?

        When a four year-old kid draws a stick person standing next to a lollipop tree, it looks great to them. However, if they don't make an effort to develop their artistic skills, by the time they become a teenager they've seen a lot of art of all sorts, and their critical faculties have developed to the point where they look at their own drawings - which are a lot better than what they did at the age of four - and realise they really aren't very good. Someone who has spent those years conscientiously working on developing their art skills will produce something that looks a lot better, but they'll probably be able to see its imperfections better than you or I would.

        Maybe you're just developing the ability to look at your writing in a more objective way. Beware of this, though, because it's common for writers to end up with a super-critical little demon sitting on their shoulder criticising every word choice as it appears on the screen. If you listen to him, you end up writing nothing at all, because no first draft is ever perfect or even the best you can do. You need to cultivate the knack of stuffing that little bastard in a soundproof box while you're actually creating, and only let him out when it comes time for revision.

        Writers need to write. If you're a writer by nature, you'll figure out a way to do it, whatever you do after finishing high school. It's good to cultivate the habit of creating every day, but there's no need to panic about the lack of time, because you don't need to do it all now.

        Finally, I don't think anyone can be a voracious reader and habitual writer without getting better at writing.

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        • Levi_Ackerman_is_bae
          5 years ago

          Thanks. You've actually given me some pretty solid advice.
          I think the reason I actually started writing though was because the stuff I wrote as a kid was actually really good. I used to have weird dreams and write about them in a story, printing out pictures off the internet and pasting them into little books. But as a kid I was pretty good at writing. I wrote stories about kids who lost their families in car crashes and princesses being kidnapped and held for ransom (you know, normal kid stuff probably) and I made stuff actually sound good. And I had found a big box full of all the stuff I'd written and started rewriting it a couple years ago. I kind of just realized at that point that I really liked doing it and that I'd been good at it. Only to realize a year later that it'd been a waste of time and that I wouldn't be able to realistically make money off it.
          Talk about crushing a kid's dreams.

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          • Boojum
            5 years ago

            People write for different reasons, and there's nothing wrong with writing for the sake of writing.

            If you want to make money off writing, the impediments to a new writer being published these days are far lower than they've ever been. You don't need to find a publisher that's willing to commit to spending a lot of money producing and promoting your book, and it's extremely easy to publish something on Amazon or one of the other ebook channels. Whether anyone will ever buy your work is another matter of course, and how self-published writers can best present and promote their work is a huge topic on its own.

            Being a professional writer - by which I just mean someone who gets paid for the stuff they write - isn't some sort of mysterious, sacred calling; it's a job, and if you want to make a living off it, you have to treat it as a job. Just like any craftsman producing something for sale, you need to understand what sort of thing people are interested in buying, and you need create something that's of a quality good enough for people to spend their money on. But since you don't have a publisher to promote your work, you also need to figure out ways of letting your prospective customers know that you have something they might want to buy. Once you have a customer, you need to make sure they aren't disappointed, that they keep coming back to buy more, and that they pass the word around that you have a good product.

            There are loads of very reasonably priced guides for writers available as ebooks on Amazon. If you want to improve your writing skills, I think just about anything by James Scott Bell and Marcy Kennedy's Busy Writers Guides are a good place to start. Be aware, though, that reading books about writing can be addictive, and what you really need to do is actually write, and then come back after a while and try to figure out what seems to work and what doesn't.

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            • Levi_Ackerman_is_bae
              5 years ago

              I've got an old college writing book that I left half finished on my desk, but I'll take note of those books. All I need to do is actually finish what I start. Or maybe just stop trying to drag things on forever.

              I've never really met people that thought of it as a sacred calling, just something that anyone could do. Which is semi-true (there's plenty of people who have a hard time with grammar and such). I usually just post short stories on Patreon and ao3. I have a hard time with ending my stuff on ao3 though. They just go on forever and I can't count the amount of times that things have gone unfinished or I've deleted stuff because I just didn't know how to finish it. And social media makes it really easy to get the word around about stuff I write. I even wrote something almost a year ago that's got almost 10,000 views. Which isn't really a lot, but it makes me really proud. Especially when I meet people who've already heard of it.

              And that kind of accomplishment is almost better than the accomplishment of actually writing it. Having my work known. I've never published, but I do have a lot of people backing me who I'm pretty confident would be willing to help me out.

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