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I finish 99% of the novels I start. I couldn’t finish The Secret History.

I really appreciate the world we are living in now! AI watched this video instead of me and saved me 16 precious minutes of my life!

You are a funny man, Carl! I like your idea with the peppers 🫑 😅 and I also enjoyed your video as always :)

Woodworking channel coming soon?

How will you know if your favorite writer wrote it? This uncertainty is the problem. Yes, we crave for human products (hand-made, etc), but how can you tell? What AI optimists misunderstand is, unlike any other previous invention, AI changes reality itself, as we perceive it.

1:09 That was a solid pitch 👍 Subscribed.

If you use the kav cycle then it hooks the reader

I love this. I am currently writing a novel and am further along then I ever have been before. I honestly see myself finishing this one which is exciting. There are a lot of things that have contributed to me getting this far, but the biggest thing that is helping me day to day right now is that I notice my fears. I think my fears have been the biggest thing holding me back and I feel a pit in my stomach every time I sit down to write. But I take a step back from it and I journal about it. Just looking at the fear as objectively as possible and by the time I've done that, I'm able to put it aside and keep going. I never thought to do this with desires as well, but I will definitely give it a try!

My prose must be the best prose in the world, because even I can't see it.

I loved I An Not A Serial Killer *because* of the demons.

I desire to write for like 20 years. That is not the Problem

Tons of people think they're evil and there's a lot of interesting reasons in why.

I was half expecting Erikson to show up in comments. And then I would’ve wondered how many people recognized it was actually him (if he didn’t introduce himself, which, frankly, he likely would have).

You started to lose me a bit at the call to action, then won me right back at the minor mug freakout. Great video!

Perfect ending 👌

Good content as usual, but I kept looking for the cat, so I'm pretty sure I missed a fair amount of the points.

Like, writing the opening scene isnt just something you can wing. Well, at least not for The Ancient World mega-multi-series, the future of literature entertainment. I spent weeks building up the flow and precision before I executed the first scene. I cant just piss out a rewrite of the opening scene. I gotta spend days rebuilding that flow and emotion and intensity of exposition and action. The first scene-first 4 paragraphs, heck the first paragraph, of a novel is super important!

Ahh man you won't believe what happened. I don't know how on Earth it happened. My gosh. It's so horrible. On my Scrivener software--truly am baffled--my Scene 1 from Chapter 1 is gone. It's gone. The first scene. The eye capturing scene that... I can't really remember because I wrote it, kept on writing and never really reread it because I am not revising yet... and now I go look through all my chapters.... AND THE MOST IMPORTANT ONE is gone. Well, its the most important scene of the first chapter. Well, I suppose the inciting incident is the most important scene of chapter one. BUT YOU GET WHAT I MEAN! The opening scene! It just disappeared, no data of it in my software. And its all one file, I cannot explain how it vanished. The woes of writing. Mind you, I've heard worse horror stories where authors lose their entire hard dive and can't restore their data. omgosh. worse nightmare even. I just had a glitch. A setback. I was really vibing and flowing when I wrote it the first time. Well, you all know how important the opening scene is. You have to really bullseye the opening scene. Now, I have to rewrite it from memory. ugh!

I was listening to ''The Way of Kings'' audiobook the other night, and I noticed how ''invisible'' Sanderson's prose felt. It's tough. I've been working on my books for a long time, but I think my writing can still feel a bit choppy. It's exactly as you say. People who read my stuff don't pick up on that, but I'm starting to see it, and I think that's a very good thing. It means I am getting closer to the level of writing this story deserves.

“Jibe” for the win!

I self published on Amazon’s Kindle unlimited, which tells the author how many pages someone reads. What an eye-opening slap in the face. Seeing those DNFs made me take down my book and try again. Now I’m glad I did.

Am I suffering from a writer's version of the Mandela effect? I could swear that for years, present tense was touted as being as potent a tool as active voice for carrying action and conveying intent. Now, I see it looked down on quite a bit. In my own WIP, I opted for present tense because [spoiler alert] the protagonist is experiencing her present through future remote viewing. Past tense made all the allusions to temporal split and unreliable narration feel clunky and definitive, whereas present tense allows for a little more of a subjunctive/conditional vibe.

Jokes on you cause I'm going to end this vid- You failed to meet my pepper expectations... but I could stop watching fast enough!

"Well, joke's on you because I'm gonna stop this video before you can st--" Genius

So... subconsciously annoying prose, no rooting interest, and poor expectations. Frankly, this sounds rather like picking a damning choice from a list of damning choices, You have to have *some* prose style, and a certain number of people are going to hate it. And deciding what someone is going to be interested in, and their expectations, are both sort of the same thing. Perhaps the best advice is: withing the bounds of sanity, write to please yourself? And where's the cat?

In Romans 7, Paul the Apostle writes "What I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do." This video was a real eye-opener and reminded me of that truth; we as people are deeply driven by desires that we dont always agree with. Like you say, recognizing those desires as what they are, as sensory influences, helps to counteract them and instead do what we actually, truly, want to do

Came for the cat, stayed for the bell peppers.

Where is the cat?

I just finished reading "This is How You Lose the Time War." Would you say that's an example of NOT invisible prose?

I appreciate the thought on writing (I have found your advice to be true in my own practice) but I believe that your reflection on desire and “value” opens a much more profound door than this simple video might lead one to suppose.

I went from writing using AI to now having the AI teach me how to write. In the future I hope to only use AI for brainstorming or research.

Somebody's comming up... somebody serious...

Based on the title, I thought the direction this video would be: "Stop trying to write a novel, instead try and write a story, then classify it later." Still an interesting discussion about motivation.

Brilliant video, that's a useful take for a lot of parts of life really

I like when people explain things. Hmm, I wonder why that is....

I didn't know i want a cookie. Until i watched this video.

Thank you for the advice Mr. Duncan!

Wanting to write is not my problem. Within the first few sentences of composition, the world falls away and I simply watch my story unfold - I live for this moment, I'd rather have this than free tickets to Disneyland. The problem is getting there. I think my problem is that I simply do not know how to set reasonable mid-term goals. Long terms goals are easy - complete the thing. Short term goals are easy too - do one thing, take the first step, do the first sit up, write the first paragraph. But novels are big, sprawling beasts and I have no idea how many sit ups I need to do (mixed metaphor, I know) before I finish the darn thing! What I need is a sense of efficacy

I actually go my first draft done during my efforts in November. Just got lucky I guess, though I admit it was a late start. Once going I wanted to see what would happen if I could get it done. I'm glad your title didn't mean that I shouldn't do it.

While we talk about the "Battle between the TV and the Refrigerator" but in a way they often tag team to fend off people looking to their goals. They exist in the here and now, not a bad thing in itself but without a desire to change the future they can become cyclical. And yes there's been a lot of criticism of "Middle Class Morality" for its pushing of delayed gratification (especially when it seems like the reward never comes) but there is a point where the other extreme becomes bad as well since no energy is stored for growth as it is all consumed in each momentary desire to appease the TV and Refrigerator. Not that they can be ignored completely, humans are both material beings and social animals but they have their place.

Most of the most successful and talented writers in my opinion are a bit disconnected from society. Or rather they are observers rather than participants. It seems to me that nowadays such people are much less likely to use messengers, TV, social networks.

Hi! I wonder what one should do if one's story is making one sad? I have a fantastic plot and it was supposed to be a gothic horror story in the traditional British style. But somehow creepiness only turns into people just being upset and having a hard fate and it is really dragging me down. I used to love creepy stories but I mostly enjoyed them with my ex partner. I am still so full of sadness that, no matter what I write, the sadness is leaking into it. The writing being sad is what keeps me from doing it because it is not enjoyable and makes me feel even sadder. Do you have any idea how to use one's writing to access one's positive emotions? Or at least other emotions than sadness? I'm leading an ok life, the breakup was 4 years ago. Yet when I write, the sadness comes out on the paper and it is depressing. I want to feel passion for my story again. I want to feel enthusiasm and excitement again. I'm also dealing with temporary but very long physical pain and it is making it difficult to feel joy and excitement for writing, too. Where is my inner spark, my happiness that I used to get from writing? Writing used to be my everything and it came so easy to me in the past. It just flowed, and I would write ever day and the ideas were inspired and sparkly and fun. Is it perhaps as simple as writing a story that is more fun, and if I'm writing horror, should I add a bit of comic relief? If you find this problem interesting, perhaps you could make a video about this? Thank you and have a great day. I love what you are doing.

On the other hand, if you are dedicated, nothing can stop you from combining eating a cheeseburger, a cookie, or lighting a cigarette while writing. We all need to pause and reflect, before composing the next line....

crustaceans for me please! 🐢

I liked your ideas on values vs. desires. I also agree about advertising pulling us away from our values (for the most part). I feel much more fulfilled doing the things that I value.

I'm not procrastinating, I'm on an extensive research opportunity. I've already written a novel (a confusing one, granted) and self-published it. It took me over ten years to finish and rewrite it to my satisfaction. My new ones will get there (eventually). In the meantime, I've got a garden to manage in Stardew. Or watch strangers on RUclips.

I watched this video after baking cookies.... now im struggling if i should eat them or not 😂

Your analysis about human desires go beyond writing. Thank you for sharing these insights!

Overcoming desires seems to be the path that Buddhism is pursuing. My only craving is for cats, speaking of cats...well this video has not enough of that!

Brilliant content ❤