Honestly, I didn't even choose to make this story I'm working on. It just kinda happened? I was playing around one day, decided to get creative, had a spark of inspiration, and by the end of the day had 2 chapters down. By the end of the month, a rough draft, complete. Now I'm making a full-on story, fixing plot holes and fleshing out lore, while trying to mind pacing and all that fun stuff. Never wrote a story like this in my life, but here we go I guess? What is my reason for writing, then? Well... because I have a story to tell, I suppose. Don't know where it came from, but gimmie a few months and I'm sure we'll at least see where it's going.
There is no reason. You shouldn't. Don't do it. Seriously, don't. Months, years of work that will amount to nothing. But if you still do it, despite all of the reasons not to, you probably should.
Great advice! I find myself writing a lot of poems, had no intention of sharing until my English professor pushed me to publish. I do the same with stories but haven’t published them yet. Thinking about it. With regard to you, you’ve inspired me to learn more about writing novels. I love your content. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
This. Woke up one morning with a complete stranger-not-stranger in my mind, impatiently tapping her foot and occasionally info-dumping me about her life. Ten years and about a thousand pages later, her story is still untold but now we talk daily and it makes me happy.
I can't remember who said it, but somewhere I came across this and it sticks to me since the very day: "The question is not IF you should write stories. The real question is: Could you live without doing it?"
Re: the people who say you should publish a book before making videos about writing. There are lots of channels out there by people who should NOT have published their books - not yet, anyway! I've DNFed quite a few of them. Being a RUclipsr does not mean the book one wrote is readable. The thing I appreciate about your videos is that you are clearly a well-versed READER. You tell us what works and does not work, for the reader, in written stories. And that is VERY useful information to me, since I want to write stories other people will be eager to finish reading. Thank you for doing that, and please keep doing it! A lot of people go around saying "Read Like a Writer," but all that has done has been to completely ruin reading for me. What I really want is to Write Like a Reader. (You have my permission to put that on a t-shirt if you want! ) 😊
Your observations are interesting and ring true. I worked in construction 25 years until I was injured. I mastered one trade and became proficient in others before going into business and later managing big outfits. The parallels around the concepts of craft in writing and construction are remarkable as are the emotional satisfactions. I could write a book on that. After construction I wrote for newspapers. The business aspects were starkly similar. I am now working on my 10th book--still growing and learning. I'm a fan of what you do. Please keep doing it. You are right in that there is no bottom to learning the craft.
You're so right. Spot on. No purpose no life {maybe that's why man takes a wife}. In fact they should teach this when young accompanied by how a lack of moral values takes away the real purpose of one's life.
The reason I’ve been working on a novel for the last 10 months or so is that a couple of ideas came to me, I thought “I’d love to read a story about that!” followed by “oh damn, I guess I’d better write it then”. It took me 6 months of research before I even started writing, but I’ve always thought that even if I never write a word, I will have learned so much in the process that it will all have been worthwhile. Once I get a first draft complete I might start thinking about how to sculpt it into something others might want to read, but for the moment I’m just thinking about my own fascination and essentially writing for myself.
I have had so many story ideas rolling around in my head. After 13 years, I wrote one down, put effort into their plot and character and theme... and it didn't pan out. A great concept but fell flat. I tried to write it twice. Now it's no longer rolling around in my head. Until I wrote it and failed, it was always going to nag at me as the great novel I never wrote. Now I know better. And improved my craft for the next idea.
Same here. After a bad experience with a Creative Writing class in college, I gave up my dream of being a writer. But the stories and characters kept rolling around in my head. No matter how I tried, they refused to be silenced. Finally after retirement, I knew I had to let them out. And it's a joy to finally put the stories down on paper. Not sure if any will ever be published, but I'm loving the journey!
Valuable advice. I've been putting a lot of consideration into the motivation of my writing lately, seeing as I have no motivation to write anymore. I have wondered if the lack of community is harming me in that area; I don't have anyone who will read what I've written. My best friend is highly dyslexic, so I have to read my writing to him, and that removes a significant portion of my artistry.
What a lovely thing to hear on youtube - success not as a numbers game but as just being worthwhile for the audience who found it! That's rare to hear even on art and literature channels right now, I'm so glad to hear it's like that for you!
I 100% agree with you. You don’t need to be published to share your knowledge. English or creative writing teachers don’t have to be published to teach English or creative writing. Personally, I love your videos and have taken a lot from them. 😉
Not to make it weird, but I enjoy the way you say "progress." It tickles my brain. I also really love the advice of "you can do anything, but you can't do everything," that rocked my soul out of and then back into my body, giving me new perspective, so thanks!
I totally get you, Carl. This is the same reason why I don't do much coaching. I do some for free, but any effort I would take to expand that, I'd rather spend on writing, publishing, and marketing novels.
As a native spanish speaking writer I find your videos very informative and to the point, they ignite thinking, they are warm and pleasant to watch or hear, you are like that dude in secondary school who always knew things :) thanks pal, greetings from Guadalajara Mexico
Great video as always, Carl! I'm working on my first novel and find that self doubt kills the enjoyment of the process, in a way. I worry too much if what I'm writing is good enough, or if I have the skill to fix it later, and it's become rather stressful. That leads a goal oriented mindset, like I have to finish it because that's the only way I can prove to myself that I can.
Sense of purpose and agency in that I can genuinely make something for myself is really satisfying, it really is why I make anything creative at all. Including writing!
I would say writing is a different skill than teaching. Being published or not doesn't directly reflect how good you can teach, or even talk about writing.
I had a single scene stuck in my head when I was 22 or 23. I expanded upon it in my head and at some point the idea of "should you write this down?" popped up in my head. I did, expanded it even further and by the time I was 26 I had my first draft. My friends who read it told me the world I created was cool but it felt a little unfocussed. Let me say from my perspective today that they were very kind with that assessment. It was all plot and world, no character, no themes, senseless sideplots and loooots of infodumps. I let it rest, did my PhD and being able to breathe after that, the idea began nagging again. So I got curious and actually started spending time on learning how to tell compelling stories. I spent about a year thinking about this world in my head. Now, finally, at 32 years old, 10 years after the original idea I have a full outline and the first few chapters finished in a quality that puts my first draft to utter shame. Will I try to publish it? Will I be happy with the outcome? I don't know! But for now I am incredibly excited every time I boot up my computer to get to writing and for me that's all that matters for now.
This is his show . I still however want to share a small testimony. I was a philosopher and it never did anything for me. At the end of every debate I always saw philosophers still saying I don't know , after thousands of years of philosophy. When the entire purpose of philosophy was to know. Before this I was interested in science and that was my escapism .. I ran many escapisms from my life. I watched over 1,000 hours of anime 1,500 hours of ark , thousands of hours of films , and I also had a daily hobby of 3D art and coding.. after 120 projects I recognized I needed a writer or I needed to become a writer. I was an artist when I was young, and an artist before I started writing. After hundreds of corrections of the way I speak and my reason and logic in debate.. about 120 failed development projects. I decided to write. All of these projects have been for escapism , but my writing has a purpose.. I enjoy not knowing what happens next and building the story around the character. I'm excited to see how far the books go, but if not.. excited to turn them into game or animated projects to be reviewed.
I have been writing for a while and self-published a few works, partly because I've been pushing to be taken seriously as an adult I may be autistic and dyslexic but I'm 31 and still haven't made it. Learning is often portrayed as something you are supposed to have finished once you leave school/university and it does seem ironic for a culture that values the individual so highly that we also find it so dismissive of those who aren't producing vast output for the use of the collective.
I wanna write the last novel before the end of civilization. It'll be called The Last Book. The more news I watch, the faster I type, and my anxiety gets so bad that I have to shut the Tv off. But then I run out of ideas and worry that I'll not get published before the publishers are all destroyed. So the timing is everything. It's like the sequel to The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus, by Owen Gingerich.
It is facing away from Carl, so they must have had an argument. Or perhaps it doesn't like sharing screen time with his cat. Either way, it will get over it.
What's that, you can't make videos and write a novel at the same time... just because you have a job? The solution is obvious: Quit your job! What's that you say - you need a job to live? Uh oh, that is a quandary... I'm writing novels because I enjoy it, and in hope of "paying it forward" - hopefully entertaining people with the kind of stories that enthralled me in my teens and 20s when I read a lot.
It's a form of creation magic - where there was nothing now there's a story / novel. Also, what is the name of the beautiful black and white cat, please.
Question, with millions of books being published how are they all extraordinaire works of literature? I've read a whole lot of mediocre Stephen King novels and a couple really good ones but at least he's writing. I've written a bunch of short stories and illustrated them, they are self published and probably suck. Should I let the lack of genuine genius stop me? Should I stop writing to spend 10 years getting a PHD in writing so I can feel confident in writing the book I'm presently writing? Now I sound like you Carl, thanks! Personally I'm still going to keep writing and try to become actually published even if it isn't war and peace because it isn't. As you say it provides purpose in my otherwise purposeless existence.
I literally thought of so much political intrigue, backstories and stuff only to write shit on wattpad which has so much probability of getting stolen (my fanfic did get plagiarised so I am now doubtful about writing an original book on wattpad but i know of no other platform lol)
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
Honestly, I didn't even choose to make this story I'm working on.
It just kinda happened? I was playing around one day, decided to get creative, had a spark of inspiration, and by the end of the day had 2 chapters down. By the end of the month, a rough draft, complete.
Now I'm making a full-on story, fixing plot holes and fleshing out lore, while trying to mind pacing and all that fun stuff. Never wrote a story like this in my life, but here we go I guess?
What is my reason for writing, then? Well... because I have a story to tell, I suppose. Don't know where it came from, but gimmie a few months and I'm sure we'll at least see where it's going.
I'll take honest Inspiration over technical expertise any day.
I enjoyed this video and I found it useful.
There is no reason. You shouldn't. Don't do it. Seriously, don't. Months, years of work that will amount to nothing. But if you still do it, despite all of the reasons not to, you probably should.
I write novel to leave something behind hoping someone will read it and ask who was I..
Great advice! I find myself writing a lot of poems, had no intention of sharing until my English professor pushed me to publish. I do the same with stories but haven’t published them yet. Thinking about it. With regard to you, you’ve inspired me to learn more about writing novels. I love your content. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
I write novels because my invisible friends yell at me until I tell their stories. It's the only way to shut them up. 😇
This. Woke up one morning with a complete stranger-not-stranger in my mind, impatiently tapping her foot and occasionally info-dumping me about her life. Ten years and about a thousand pages later, her story is still untold but now we talk daily and it makes me happy.
@@0o0eM exactly!! ♥♥♥
I can't remember who said it, but somewhere I came across this and it sticks to me since the very day: "The question is not IF you should write stories. The real question is: Could you live without doing it?"
Re: the people who say you should publish a book before making videos about writing. There are lots of channels out there by people who should NOT have published their books - not yet, anyway! I've DNFed quite a few of them. Being a RUclipsr does not mean the book one wrote is readable. The thing I appreciate about your videos is that you are clearly a well-versed READER. You tell us what works and does not work, for the reader, in written stories. And that is VERY useful information to me, since I want to write stories other people will be eager to finish reading. Thank you for doing that, and please keep doing it! A lot of people go around saying "Read Like a Writer," but all that has done has been to completely ruin reading for me. What I really want is to Write Like a Reader. (You have my permission to put that on a t-shirt if you want! ) 😊
Your observations are interesting and ring true. I worked in construction 25 years until I was injured. I mastered one trade and became proficient in others before going into business and later managing big outfits. The parallels around the concepts of craft in writing and construction are remarkable as are the emotional satisfactions. I could write a book on that. After construction I wrote for newspapers. The business aspects were starkly similar. I am now working on my 10th book--still growing and learning. I'm a fan of what you do. Please keep doing it. You are right in that there is no bottom to learning the craft.
You're so right. Spot on. No purpose no life {maybe that's why man takes a wife}. In fact they should teach this when young accompanied by how a lack of moral values takes away the real purpose of one's life.
The reason I’ve been working on a novel for the last 10 months or so is that a couple of ideas came to me, I thought “I’d love to read a story about that!” followed by “oh damn, I guess I’d better write it then”. It took me 6 months of research before I even started writing, but I’ve always thought that even if I never write a word, I will have learned so much in the process that it will all have been worthwhile. Once I get a first draft complete I might start thinking about how to sculpt it into something others might want to read, but for the moment I’m just thinking about my own fascination and essentially writing for myself.
I have had so many story ideas rolling around in my head. After 13 years, I wrote one down, put effort into their plot and character and theme... and it didn't pan out. A great concept but fell flat. I tried to write it twice. Now it's no longer rolling around in my head. Until I wrote it and failed, it was always going to nag at me as the great novel I never wrote. Now I know better. And improved my craft for the next idea.
The characters in my novel have lived in my head for 25 years and they are bored. They want out.
Same here. After a bad experience with a Creative Writing class in college, I gave up my dream of being a writer. But the stories and characters kept rolling around in my head. No matter how I tried, they refused to be silenced. Finally after retirement, I knew I had to let them out. And it's a joy to finally put the stories down on paper. Not sure if any will ever be published, but I'm loving the journey!
@libbiesquirrelchaser seeing the characters in words changed them to me. My novel will probably never be published either, but I'm glad I tried.
Valuable advice. I've been putting a lot of consideration into the motivation of my writing lately, seeing as I have no motivation to write anymore. I have wondered if the lack of community is harming me in that area; I don't have anyone who will read what I've written. My best friend is highly dyslexic, so I have to read my writing to him, and that removes a significant portion of my artistry.
Maybe look for other writers.
When I run out of motivation to write, I catch my breath. It's kind of nice when stupid writing leaves me alone.
What a lovely thing to hear on youtube - success not as a numbers game but as just being worthwhile for the audience who found it! That's rare to hear even on art and literature channels right now, I'm so glad to hear it's like that for you!
Thanks!
I 100% agree with you. You don’t need to be published to share your knowledge. English or creative writing teachers don’t have to be published to teach English or creative writing. Personally, I love your videos and have taken a lot from them. 😉
I really appreciate what you do for the writing community! Thank you for all that you do! Stay awesome! 😊✌️
Not to make it weird, but I enjoy the way you say "progress." It tickles my brain. I also really love the advice of "you can do anything, but you can't do everything," that rocked my soul out of and then back into my body, giving me new perspective, so thanks!
Carl Duncan, everybody!!! What a legend. Comedic, and smart.
I totally get you, Carl. This is the same reason why I don't do much coaching. I do some for free, but any effort I would take to expand that, I'd rather spend on writing, publishing, and marketing novels.
As a native spanish speaking writer I find your videos very informative and to the point, they ignite thinking, they are warm and pleasant to watch or hear, you are like that dude in secondary school who always knew things :) thanks pal, greetings from Guadalajara Mexico
Thanks!
Purpose and Focus, Community, and Infinite Pursuit.
Good points, good video. Maybe also: We become what we must be to finish.
I like that, well said!
Great video as always, Carl!
I'm working on my first novel and find that self doubt kills the enjoyment of the process, in a way. I worry too much if what I'm writing is good enough, or if I have the skill to fix it later, and it's become rather stressful. That leads a goal oriented mindset, like I have to finish it because that's the only way I can prove to myself that I can.
Thanks!
These videos inspire me to keep writing
Sense of purpose and agency in that I can genuinely make something for myself is really satisfying, it really is why I make anything creative at all. Including writing!
I love your content. Keep up what you're doing.
I appreciate that!
Amen, brother.
Creatives don't think of why they should or shouldn't create. It's not even a question. It's a drive.
I just added a new process to my writing process: I heard about this concept called Making Sense, and it really helps! I already enjoy writing more.
Excellent video!
Thank you very much!
A good insight that should be obvious but it's easy to ignore or forget (I know I do). Thanks for the reminder.
I would say writing is a different skill than teaching. Being published or not doesn't directly reflect how good you can teach, or even talk about writing.
I had a single scene stuck in my head when I was 22 or 23. I expanded upon it in my head and at some point the idea of "should you write this down?" popped up in my head. I did, expanded it even further and by the time I was 26 I had my first draft. My friends who read it told me the world I created was cool but it felt a little unfocussed. Let me say from my perspective today that they were very kind with that assessment. It was all plot and world, no character, no themes, senseless sideplots and loooots of infodumps. I let it rest, did my PhD and being able to breathe after that, the idea began nagging again. So I got curious and actually started spending time on learning how to tell compelling stories. I spent about a year thinking about this world in my head. Now, finally, at 32 years old, 10 years after the original idea I have a full outline and the first few chapters finished in a quality that puts my first draft to utter shame. Will I try to publish it? Will I be happy with the outcome? I don't know! But for now I am incredibly excited every time I boot up my computer to get to writing and for me that's all that matters for now.
This is his show . I still however want to share a small testimony.
I was a philosopher and it never did anything for me. At the end of every debate I always saw philosophers still saying I don't know , after thousands of years of philosophy. When the entire purpose of philosophy was to know.
Before this I was interested in science and that was my escapism .. I ran many escapisms from my life. I watched over 1,000 hours of anime 1,500 hours of ark , thousands of hours of films , and I also had a daily hobby of 3D art and coding.. after 120 projects I recognized I needed a writer or I needed to become a writer. I was an artist when I was young, and an artist before I started writing.
After hundreds of corrections of the way I speak and my reason and logic in debate.. about 120 failed development projects.
I decided to write. All of these projects have been for escapism , but my writing has a purpose.. I enjoy not knowing what happens next and building the story around the character. I'm excited to see how far the books go, but if not.. excited to turn them into game or animated projects to be reviewed.
I have been writing for a while and self-published a few works, partly because I've been pushing to be taken seriously as an adult I may be autistic and dyslexic but I'm 31 and still haven't made it.
Learning is often portrayed as something you are supposed to have finished once you leave school/university and it does seem ironic for a culture that values the individual so highly that we also find it so dismissive of those who aren't producing vast output for the use of the collective.
I wanna write the last novel before the end of civilization. It'll be called The Last Book. The more news I watch, the faster I type, and my anxiety gets so bad that I have to shut the Tv off. But then I run out of ideas and worry that I'll not get published before the publishers are all destroyed. So the timing is everything. It's like the sequel to The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus, by Owen Gingerich.
For most of the way through this video, that teacup looks pissed. What does that teacup have to be pissed about?!?!
It is facing away from Carl, so they must have had an argument. Or perhaps it doesn't like sharing screen time with his cat. Either way, it will get over it.
I write what I want to read, not write my own personal problems that people wouldn't care about.
What's that, you can't make videos and write a novel at the same time... just because you have a job?
The solution is obvious: Quit your job!
What's that you say - you need a job to live? Uh oh, that is a quandary...
I'm writing novels because I enjoy it, and in hope of "paying it forward" - hopefully entertaining people with the kind of stories that enthralled me in my teens and 20s when I read a lot.
Yes it's a vicious cycle of needing food to write, then needing to work to get food.
Is it just me, or is that shelf tilting over more every day?
My reason is: I want to tell a story. That’s it
It's a form of creation magic - where there was nothing now there's a story / novel. Also, what is the name of the beautiful black and white cat, please.
"PROE-cess" hehe I needed this
Excellent
Question, with millions of books being published how are they all extraordinaire works of literature?
I've read a whole lot of mediocre Stephen King novels and a couple really good ones but at least he's writing.
I've written a bunch of short stories and illustrated them, they are self published and probably suck. Should I let the lack of genuine genius stop me?
Should I stop writing to spend 10 years getting a PHD in writing so I can feel confident in writing the book I'm presently writing? Now I sound like you Carl, thanks!
Personally I'm still going to keep writing and try to become actually published even if it isn't war and peace because it isn't.
As you say it provides purpose in my otherwise purposeless existence.
Where is your cat? Doing well I hope.
I literally thought of so much political intrigue, backstories and stuff only to write shit on wattpad which has so much probability of getting stolen (my fanfic did get plagiarised so I am now doubtful about writing an original book on wattpad but i know of no other platform lol)
It's totally not on topic, but your shelves don't seem level. Please be careful.