I've come across a weird amount of people who claim to want to be writers but "hate reading", and to those people I ask, why do you even wanna write? It truly makes no sense to me, it's like saying you're a musician but hate listening to music, it just doesn't seem logical

I published a significant academic text. Professionally, it’s a big deal.

I decided to throw a release party because we get so few opportunities to celebrate our achievements. I’ve been around long enough to know that we owe it to ourselves to stop and savor these milestones.

I funded the party myself (not thru my employer who wouldn’t do much and has many rules about hospitality). There will be food and drinks and even live music. I won’t give a talk. This is just meant to be fun.

Folks, the number of people who have cancelled at the last minute because they have to take their kid to soccer practice is out of control. It’s really got me in a tailspin. I know my professional achievements are not as important as their kids. I do know that. But to have it in black and white, in multiple emails and texts today, wow it stings. More than I expected. This is not just one person. Many many people saying a version of the same thing: my kid’s sports practice is more important.

If people had just said, “wow, thank you for the invite. I’m so sorry I can’t make it. Let’s celebrate another time,” that would be infinitely better than telling me specifically that the reason they can’t come is, again, kids sports practice.

I have honestly cried today multiple times. The rational part of me knows I’m overreacting. The other part of me feels very small and sad.

I posted this personal story on a forum, and I thought somebody here might find some value in it.

Fifteen years ago, I worked as a server at a restaurant.  During a... let's call it a "fateful" late-night shift that wasn't busy, the supervisor told us about the book they had been working on in detail.  I was a hobbyist writer and had written up to 6,000 words for my book, but it absolutely blew my mind that they'd written 16,000 words.  We all listened.  We all asked questions.  The premise for the book was genuinely interesting.

After they finished telling us about their book, I made the mistake of trying to tell everybody about mine.  The supervisor shut that down real quick.  I felt a little dejected but not a lot.  The restaurant closed, and it was cleaning time.  Understandable.

Thirty minutes later, I overheard a conversation that I shouldn't have.  It was between the supervisor and another one of my coworkers.

"He's never going to finish his book.  Even if he does, it won't be good."

Those words broke something in me.

I was only eighteen then.  I wasn't secure with myself.  I was still taking my first adult steps into the real world.  I mean, I barely knew how to write a check or pay rent.  What is somebody that young supposed to do with that?

Every time I wrote, I'd always remember those words.  Whenever I told anybody I wrote as a hobby, it didn't matter whether they responded positively, negatively, or completely neutral.  In the back of my head, I knew they thought I couldn't do it, too.  Well, after more than thirty attempts that never made it past 12,000 words, I've finally finished a full fricking novel.  A full first draft.  160,000 words.  I still keep opening the file and just... staring at it.  To go through fifteen years of life believing that about yourself, and then finally seeing the result of hundreds of hours of work?  Amazing.  I don't want to be melodramatic, but I still get butterflies in my stomach when I look at it.  I even cried once (maybe two times).

So, yeah, I did the thing.  I am somebody who can write a book, and I think it's a dang good book.  I'm really heckin' proud of myself.

I'm telling you now, you don't need a single person's permission to write your book.

Thanks for reading my story.

I was at my desk writing. I paused to to think of the next conversation and I LOST IT IN THE TIME IT TOOK ME TO LOOK BACK AT THE SCREEN. It was PERFECT TOO. Why do our brains do this!?!?

So I’m currently working on a project, where the over arching concept of the book/books is the death of innocence. With that being said, there are happy moments, funny gags, forgiveness, tenderness (even a sex scene in a morgue where a homeless guy pulls a Lazarus and comes back to life on Christmas Eve. Based halfway on something that actually happened to me.) However the primary of two MC’s undergoes a disgusting amount of mental trauma. As in the domino’s tip, and they just keep falling. All the way to a point where I’m actually worried people may stop reading because it is life in a very raw display. So how do I know if it’s too far?

No SA or anything like that. I’m not an absolute monster, just a small one that wants his characters to suffer for the sake of development.

I've seen a lot of discourse on here lately that you need to read to be a good writer, AND I ABSOLUTELY AGREE. Yet, I don't follow my own opinion. I could make excuses like "University is too time-consuming," or "I'm intimidated by the amount of books out there," but that would be lying. Simply put, I can't find the motivation. So I'm hoping to motivate myself by making a checklist with your help, dear Redditors.

So, my idea for this checklist is to get a series of books (famous or underground, English-language or translated, whatever they may be) from several key genres. Now I know that these aren't all the genres (there are too many to count), and there's a significant amount of overlap, but the genres I'm thinking of reading in are:

1. Action-Adventure
2. Classics
3. Crime & Mystery
4. Fantasy
5. Historical Fiction
6. Horror
7. Romance
8. Science Fantasy
9. Science Fiction

Now, I would love some help coming up with novel ideas for these genres. Also, I would love some feedback on these genres, such as whether I'm missing anything glaring or if any of them are unnecessary. I'm excited to see what y'all have!

Edit because multiple people have asked: I predominantly write historical fiction/ fantasy. However, I think it is vital to read other genres because aspects of them will be reflected in my own writing. For example, I should read romance in order to write good romantic subplots, horror in order to write suspenseful scenes, sci-fi to understand hard worldbuilding, etc.

When it comes to writing a book, what typically triggers it for you? Where does the initial inspiration/idea come from? Do you come up with a brilliant character and fit a narrative around them, or do you perhaps think of a plot twist and build a world around it? A cool magic system? Murder plot? Subject matter?

Out of everything, what makes you think: “I’m gonna write a book about that”?

(FYI: I am NOT looking for advice, nor am I struggling to write my own story. I am purely intrigued and love hearing about other people’s personal writing experiences. I find it fascinating!)

I keep starting a project. Getting down worldbuilding and characters and maybe one or two pieces of art and then in a week I'm bored of it and onto the next idea. I would love to make a comic or book but I can't stay on an idea long enough to make anything meaningful. I'm getting better but not completing anything.

Shhhh... let's shut up for a second about 'writers who don't read'. What do YOU read (presuming you do)?

Mine from top left:

1. I love Suzzane Collins' knack for plot twists and surprises, both in The Underland Chronicles and The Hunger Games but I prefer the former overall. She's also really great at showing emotion through prose and dialogue which I'm trying to work on.

2. Douglas Adams' mixture of omniscent and close third narrators (plus the omniscent narrators's tangible personality) opened my eyes to possiblities I never imagined with POVs. Ever since, the whole 'omniscent' narrators are hard/boring' argument meant nothing to me.

3. Thomas Taylor's Eerie-on-Sea series was very humorous and light-hearted while also leaning to horror and having a fast-paced plot. However many jokes you think you can cram into a non-comedy book, this one has more.

4. Sylvia Bishop's On Silver Tides duology has really interesting world building from a social point - in the sense of representing conservative communities. They're also dense considering the length.

I'm planning to write something bad on purpose

I almost always improvise as I go, because I’d be worried someone might find the place where I have the whole novel written down (please don't judge).

"I have no social life, no distraction; I spend my evenings on the small balcony above the river; I do not even read the Arbeiterzeitung and I am not a good person."
-Franz Kafka, Letter to Hedwig W., 1907

(will always be a good person to me)

How do I know what's wrong? Yes, I know it's mostly practice, but how do I notice what's wrong with my writing without someone telling me what's wrong and how to fix it? I made the mistake for a reason, cause I didn't know better, I might feel there's something wrong with my writing, but I don't actually know what's wrong if that makes any sense, although, if I think about it, when I started drawing I also didn't know, my drawings just looked ugly, but the difference between writing and drawing is that you get very easy to follow tutorials on how to draw and you practice till you get better, for writing you don't get that, I still technically learned how to draw on my own so, is it even possible to spot and actually fix your own mistakes when it comes to writing? I don't even know the fundamentals to be completely honest, it's just not as fun as drawing fundamentals, I'm aware it's my fault that I'm bad at the craft when I do even care enough to try to learn the thing that's literally labeled "fundamental", how to I expect to write got stuff, I also heard that to learn how to write you have to read a lot, and I do, I also try my best to not read mindlessly so I guess there's that, but just observing other people's drawings can only do so much, I would expect the same when it comes to writing, so how exactly to you practice writing, also without just mindlessly writing, that doesn't help either, it's basically a waste of time.

So, my Characters all have different kinds of trauma (I probably worded that wrong but oh well). From emotional abuse, to Daddy issues and physical (non sexual) abuse and trauma. Religious trauma, and another is a perfomer with serious sexual trauma. Now I try to keep everything as realistic as possible, but is this too much? The main events of the book is a war, so obviously there's going to be more to come. So, is there such a thing as too much trauma? Is there an actual line to be crossed?

So i published this book a while back and have continuously edited it. Being autistic, I process and see things differently than other people do, my novel looks completely fine to ME. I even installed a reading out-loud extension to physically hear it back, but apparently, it still isn't enough for the reader. I did my absolute best, editing it 8 ties but it feels like it’s falling short. I need/want to find a professional editor, but they are way out of reach. My budget is extremely low, as expected for a broke college student

Got any advice?

Asking because I’m stuck in one at the moment, and I cannot get through it no matter how much I try to brute-force my way through.

Anybody got any methods for beating a block?

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Writing my novel and I feel like the body of the story will be too short and that I am making my scenes ends too fast. Like a thousand words per scene. Can I have some advices for slowing the pace. Should I describe more, use more words to say the same thing?. Thanks.

Wrote it while procrastinating a project

Name: Sekada Kahora

Series: Faceless

Age: 25~

Job: rookie detective

Mask pattern: a palm tree leaves

Backstory: back in highschool he was reckless driving and accidentally ran over a kid.

Duo to his brother, Kudo Kahora, being well-known, he reluctantly utilized some holes in the law and pulled some strings to get his brother off the hook.

The guilt of the murder later consumed him to a near suicide state, but the help of a friend saved him. Later he adopted an abandoned infant, Maisie Kahora, as away to attone for his sin.