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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   1851 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for September 6, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

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Does anyone have advice about how to restart your creativity or imagination? This is a strange question, I know.

When I was a bit younger, I was a very keen creative writer. I always carried a notebook with me, and usually within a couple of months I'd have filled it up with ideas and would need to get a new one. I always had some short story or longer project in progress, and if I finished or got stuck with one, it was never long before I had a new idea to work on. As I've aged into my mid-30s, and settled into a steady career and routine, I feel like this has slowed down immensely. Recently I realized that I'd carried the same notebook for over a year, and it still wasn't full. I try to fill my life with new stimuli, but somehow it is as though these don't want to congeal into new writing ideas. It's not so much a question of putting time into it exactly - I have time in which I can do things like this. But if I sit down and just try to force it, I end up getting bored, frustrated, and distracted, and walk away to do something else.

Is this a normal side effect of aging and life becoming more stable and boring? If this has happened to you, did you find any effective countermeasure?

Start running a dungeons and dragons campaign(personally I recommend Pathfinder 2e or 1e), and take it seriously. Really delve into the setting (for this I recommend 2nd edition Planescape, but there are plenty of great ones out there) and think about making a fun and appealing campaign for your players.

I never lost my creativity but at the same time I was a gamemaster for over a decade.

I recently joined a D&D campaign as a player, and was invited to write a backstory. The act of doing that was my favorite creative thing I've done this year. Fantasy is not really my chosen genre, but it was very helpful to have that as an "assignment" to work on. I wonder if there are more ways I can take on "writing obligations."

I wonder if there are more ways I can take on "writing obligations."

There's an opportunity just a few threads down from here: https://www.themotte.org/post/659/the-motte-moddes-highspace-september-2023

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