sonicinterface

An essential skill for a writer who wants to write anything of length is worldbuilding. Creating large, complex settings and cultures, the elements of which interact with each other in interesting and believable ways.

And as you might be able to guess, it's a skill I'm lacking in.

I just don't have the passion for it. I don't know if I'm not starting small enough or what, but any world larger than short-story-size feels like more trouble than it's worth. All I can manage are bits and pieces, just enough to describe in one paragraph and hold together a single short story-- and recyclable for more than that if I'm lucky. I can also take the concepts established by others and follow their patterns, for example creating characters for settings and cultures that already exist.

Some of you may have noticed my numerous collabs with @lizardman22 (hereafter abbreviated as 22). P1P2 collabs, we call them-- short for "Part 1, Part 2"-- in which I offer up the start of a story, introducing a situation involving characters and settings that may or may not already exist, and he writes the rest of the story, showing how it plays out. (We tried it once with the roles reversed, and I... didn't enjoy it.)

22 is a far more passionate worldbuilder than I am. He drafts proper profiles for his characters and settings, and even goes out of his way to elaborate on minor details that I would consider largely irrelevant. He has a passion for it. I don't.

Do any mountain harpies exist apart from Tracy Flashtail? Is there anything of note about the Shepherd's Plains, except that the dogfolk known as the Canidex hail from them? What of the bearfolk of the conspicuously unnamed northern regions, the ones that started the Cub Scout program? I've never bothered to address those questions, and feel no real need to. Yet ask 22 an equivalent question about any of his characters or concepts, and he'll gladly provide an answer, if not spin one up on the spot.

No two ways about it: I'm a lazy writer, just like I am a lazy almost-everything-else.

I feel like I'm on the "Goofus" side of a Goofus-and-Gallant comic.

Last night I played a game of Wargroove against a friend online. He beat me (he always does). The last few turns were especially humiliating; my commander was boxed in by units I couldn't attack, all my other units had been picked off, and I couldn't bring in any new units without them being killed on the spot-- and that was before he took out my recruitment structures and left me unable to create new units. I was too noble to resign, so there was literally nothing I could do while he took his sweet time taking out my stronghold and claiming the win.

That scenario perfectly encapsulates an emotion I have a particular dislike for: helplessness. Helplessness is a terrible feeling. I mean, of course it is-- but for me it goes beyond that.

As hyper-empathetic as I am, I can hardly stand to read about characters (including fictional characters) in helpless situations, whether they allegedly deserve it or not.

Frustratingly, there seem to be quite a few writers on DeviantART and FurAffinity who will gladly write characters into helpless situations in the cruelest way possible. Would you want to read a story about a character who's left in a flattened state, completely helpless but still alive and aware, for years on end, or even-- I hate to write the word-- permanently? I sure as heck wouldn't, but a lot of people apparently would.

Yesterday (May 31) was my birthday. It was a fairly uneventful birthday-- I can count the birthday wishes I received on one hand-- but I did go out to dinner with my father and a friend of his at a favorite restaurant of ours. We talked at length about myself and my future (and my lack of plans for it). We even shared favorite stories about things I'd done.

I told a story of my own, about something I was proud of doing. One time when my parents were out of town, my iPhone needed to be shipped in for repairs, but it specifically had to be at a UPS store and there was no such store in my hometown. I looked up the nearest UPS store on my car's GPS navigator, and it was in another city an hour's drive away. So I set the GPS, drove over, shipped off the iPhone, had lunch somewhere local, and drove back home.

According to my dad, this story demonstrated what excellent problem-solving skills I had. And that stuck with me.

To me it felt like nothing. The whole point of a GPS navigator is to help you drive to places you wouldn't otherwise know how to get to, and this was a textbook application of it. It's no more complicated than fetching a screwdriver when you've got screws to undo.

On the other hand... I've read that something feeling trivially easy to you is a sign that you're particularly good at it. And a mind geared towards problem-solving would certainly explain my approaches to a lot of things.

So I'm an exceptional problem-solver. What of it?

Problem-solving is something of an abstract skill compared to art or science. A lot of careers that involve problem-solving require more specialized skillsets than I've got; I don't see myself becoming a business consultant, for example.

I wouldn't amaze a theater audience by going up on stage and using a collapsed cardboard box as an improvised right-angle measure. Amuse them, maybe, but not amaze them.

I'm a problem-solver... but I'm helpless in the face of the biggest problem I'll ever have to solve: what to do with my life.

Other examples of my problem-solving prowess in action:

- I needed to slice a ham for sandwich meat, but was told I couldn't use the wooden cutting board because the ham juices would soak in and damage it. Dirtying up a plastic cutting board for one sandwich seemed wasteful, so I covered the board with plastic wrap and then sliced away.

- While on vacation in Mexico, I was told I couldn't bring my iPad along for fear of it getting stolen, but I was afraid I'd get bored without it. I realized that the real problem was that I was carrying my iPad in plain sight, so I bought a messenger bag from a local store to carry it in.

- I needed to use an Ethernet cable to connect a router to an old computer that couldn't connect to WiFi. I had a cable that was long enough, but it got in the way when laid across the floor. I bought a pack of adhesive cable hooks, planned out a route across the ceiling, stuck the hooks in place systematically, and strung the cable across the room that way.

So you're telling me that people actually SOCIALIZE during family gatherings? As in they TALK to each other about irrelevant personal matters, and not only is it tolerable, it's actually their preferred method of dinner entertainment?

Sounds far-fetched.

You ever have one of those moments where you get out a blank sheet of paper or open a blank text document, and then just... freeze? You know there's unlimited creative potential in front of you, and you'd like to do something, but you have no idea what to do, and you can't pick out a good idea to work on, so you most likely just end up doing nothing.

I call that "sandbox paralysis", and I believe I'm especially prone to it.

I recently purchased FUZE for my Nintendo Switch. (For those who don't know, FUZE is a programming tool that allows people to code and create their own games, as well as play games created by others.) I thought I had ideas for what to create, but when I finally had the "New Project" button in front of me, the sandbox paralysis hit me hard.

Is sandbox paralysis the same thing as writer's block? It seems like it shouldn't be, as sandbox paralysis covers way more than just writing. It's probably safe to assume that every creative pursuit is prone to it.

Taking another look at my tools doesn't do anything. Looking at what others have done with the same tools doesn't seem to help, either. Putting my tools away for the time being and finding something else to do... is probably wishful thinking (and besides, I think I'm beginning to run out of other things to do).

What does that leave me with?