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Writers, Avoid This Mistake
Let me start by saying, that this is about my personal experience, so your mileage may vary. But it was a significant enough discovery for me that I want to put it into this article. There is a certain behavior that severely hampers my productivity when writing, especially short fiction. And here it is:
Chatting with someone about what you are passionate about (writing wise).
Yes that sounds counter-intuitive at first glance, why wouldn’t you want to talk about your passions with a friend or a partner for example. Well, hear me out. If you talk about it with someone you trust and someone you can bounce ideas back and forth with, that’s a great thing to do. Again, this is very personal, but for me, it helps me develop ideas and probe what could work and what probably wouldn’t.
But, and this is a big but, when chatting (i.e. typing it out) with someone about my ideas, what to write about or even just things I am generally curious and passionate about (like ancient history), it sucks the motivation out of me, to create something worthwile from it.
It’s a bit like your brain already getting the satisfaction of having your thoughts written out and thus reducing the excitement to do it all…