Picking up where I left off

I have an unfinished story series on the site that I left unfinished about two years ago. Life got chaotic, I got depressed, and I just couldn’t get the last chapter out. I started a draft, then I froze, and now its sitting there.

Things are looking up and I’m feeling up to writing again, but I’m still feeling a bit apprehensive about jumping back in. Part of it is that the final chapter is to a series that I know some people enjoyed back in the day and I don’t wanna fuck up the plot, characters, etc. There’s a few different threads to wrap up. But also, it’s just been so long since I’ve written so much as a lengthy email. I feel a bit stupefied (and not in the hot way).

Any other writers out there who’ve taken a long break from writing and have advice about how to get my groove back?

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I took a break from writing for about a year. I lost my time for creative writing when I had to delve heavily back into academic writing for a work credential. I found that by the time I’d finished it had assassinated my muse.

After suffering with writers block for many months what finally got me over the hump was playing around with those AI writing programs. I have several old story hooks in a file so I picked my favorite one, from my favorite kink that I’d never written about before and started trying to feed it into the different AIs to see what they’d do with it.

I hated what they did, but the process of trying to fix their shitty story output got me writing again. Before I knew it I had tossed the AIs and started on that story on my own and it’s been going like gangbusters.

So, my suggestion is: choose a kink you always wanted to write but never had the guts to, and try to see what those AIs can do. Take their output and try to fix it to make it not shit.

No guarantee it will work for you but it’s a thought. Good luck!

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I took a long break on the one story I had out. Many years. Life changed. I had desires to return, but it didn’t happen. I got the urge on a different story and did that new one. Then I got back to my original. It was nice to see some people had remembered.

Do pick back up. There are those who remember your story and want to read more. Know they think fondly of you.

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I stopped contributing… hadn’t submitted a story for a couple of years and found one that had been sitting since the “Shelter in Place” so I submitted it. Now that I see how poorly it performed and the snarky “1” ratings from a petty few, I remember why I stopped writing and out permanently this time.

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The ones (and 0.5’s) are demoralizing. I don’t have an answer for it.

I always used to accumulate a small number of them. It’s much better with my story that I’m posting on the general kink site only. Spiral seems to have a small number of folks who think think this is Yelp or that they are Derrida or something.

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I think I would have preferred having no feedback than to suffer fools. I still write for my own amusement but I do enjoy other authors efforts. I’m on this site twice a day.

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I’ve just had about two years away from writing and I’ve got two unfinished story series on Gay Spiral: ‘Nubians’ and ‘Earth to Earth’. The only way I could get back into writing was by running with a completely new idea, so I published ‘Life After Life’ on here in January. I’m now re-reading the two incomplete stories with a view to finishing them. So, my advice is:
If you want to finish your story off, re-read it several times and it will hopefully spark some new ideas which will help you finish it. Or, leave that for now and start something entirely new. I find that actually writing something gives me more ideas whereas thinking rather than writing leads to a block. Everyone’s different, of course.

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Negative critics are the death of creativity. I’m really sorry to hear that you had low feedback and that this has put you off contributing. I hope that you will reconsider because there will be many more who enjoyed your stories than those being snarky about them.

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Personally, I’d like to see no voting or rating except from peer who have registered on the site. Internet trolls are a bane. I had told Martin tht, for me, this site is a way of expressing creativity but also an"exhibitionism" of a sort. We sometimes test our fetishes and fantasies and see how others respond. Sort of like FURRY NIGHT at the Eagle. All it takes is one snarky person to not ruin the night but certainly diminish the enjoyment of it
I dont sit in a dark room thinking of my shame, but I’ll just keep these things to myself and not share. Besides, there are far more creative people out there to keep me amused.

I’ve been sitting on my two series for some time now too. I got part way into the next chapter of one of them, but then I focused away on other things in life and lost the motivation for it. I have the ideas planned out in my head, but if you’re not in that headspace, the writing just won’t flow and it feels forced and disjointed.

Don’t force yourself to write for the sake of writing. If you do want to get back into the mood and headspace to write, I’d say start by re-reading some of your own past work or the stories that you’d like to continue to slowly reignite that creativity and rebuild that universe in your mind. Or if you have other ideas, maybe try to restart by writing a brand new “quick and dirty” short story that’s unrelated to your outstanding work, again just to get that “feel” of writing back.

Hope that helps!

I know it’s easier said than done, but I try to not give too much thought to the ratings themselves. Any positive or constructive comments I appreciate for sure, but pointless and deliberate negative feedback I’d just glaze over and move on from it. For me, I write and post mainly for my own enjoyment afterall, so whether others like it or not is not too much of my concern (especially if they are not serious about it).

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Well, the ratings do matter because it’s often the only form of feedback you get. But you have to parse it. If a story gets a very low :fire: rating from someone does that mean your story wasn’t hot? More than likely it means that the reader didn’t like one of your kinks, and as long as it was tagged properly that makes it the readers fault (and them a dick for rating you down for it).

A low :eggplant: :sweat_drops: score often just means the reader didn’t get off reading your story, which for some stories is totally reasonable. Not everything we post here is wank fiction.

I personally loathe the :brain: score, because to a huge portion of readers on GSS it means HYPNOSIS and nothing else. Did you write a transformation story? Congrats on your 3.0 :brain: score. Doesn’t matter how good of a transformation sequence you wrote, some users will rate you a 1 because it wasn’t literally a pocket watch “you are getting very sleepy” story.

The only one that actually gets to me is the writing score. When I’m rated low on writing I want to know what I did wrong. Poor writing is fixable. It deserves actual feedback that the author can act on, whereas to service the other scores might require a radically different story.

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I have nothing left to contribute and I have no more lines to write. But you all do. And so I’ll sit back and read and give you all nothing but 4’s and 5’s and cheer you on!

To ad my two cents to the „low grades“ : I seem to have a troll who hates me, since the mayority of my stories ranks 4 or even better, but at least one 1 is given , usually. The system „ignores“ such a bad grade after some time , but it still angers me and pulls me down.

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The haters suck. Totally understand why you’d stop publishing, but if you ever change your mind, lots of folks will be excited to read it. Thanks for posting what you’ve posted!

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Yes, the system will eventually ignore an outlier but at the expense of one of your highest ratings to average it away. Which is better than leaving the troll rating to sharply reduce your average, but still an annoyance. This (of course) happened with the latest story I posted. Despite being very clearly tagged, titled, and summaried someone still gave it a 1 for the “wank” factor. And while I’ll admit the subject matter is unwankable if you’re sharply turned off by the theme, the theme couldn’t have been more clearly indicated. So at that point they’re just punishing the author for writing outside their comfort zone.

Is that supposed to inspire me to direct my efforts towards less raunch? Because it doesn’t.

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One thing I credit for my survival; Four occurrences of Lymphoma from working HazMat (and of the 18 of us who became sick at the same time in the same Battalion, I’m one of three survivors) is by removing negativity from my life.
Unsequestered creativity is both cathartic and reaffirming; For you all to share fetishes, fantasies and “what ifs” bonds, binds and connects me to you. Having a rating system may be constructive but it can be punitive or destructive as well. For the balanced person, this is not a problem. When I read your works, I’m reassured that this is an intimacy shared and I have faith that something can be learned and I, in turn, feel enhanced or my perceptions widened.
The Troll is destructive… just as much as my cancer. I am not balanced and so I withdraw. It’s not that it destroys my life or preoccupies it. It’s an unnecessary distraction and certainly unworthy of you excellent writing or that of the other authors here. And Good Lord, There are so many. Red Spider, Martin, Amul, Derek… … you all leave me in awe .

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It amazes me just how many people fail to read the tags for a story then get annoyed that it wasn’t what they wanted. They should not punish the author with a bad review because they didn’t pay attention. I try to separate the quality of the writing with the content. Even stories I strongly dislike I generally rate well in terms of writing because I know writing is tougher than many people think.

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Dude!

I love your writing!

I just found this thread, and it really upsets me to learn how some really great authors have been hurt by some assholes with lousy ratings to have stopped posting. I think the whole rating system needs an overhaul. Can anonymous people rate stories? Maybe they shouldn’t. And maybe even non authors can’t rate below a 3 on any category. When I rate, I don’t think I’ve ever rated a category below a 4. As a non authors I don’t see as I am qualified to give such a low rate.

I’ve said it before, you guys are tremendously talented and I wish the trolls could be excised from the site.

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