Hello Steemit!
I’m thankful for having been accepted in this community.
The concept is great and after some digging into the nuts and bolts of the platform I must say, good job! Things like this platform and community are hard to come by.
About myself
My name is Wensley, and I’m a writer. This introduction will be about how I changed. From writing what I wanted to write, to writing what needs to be written.
I hope that this rendition of my writing journey will be of use to you. Any use, other than getting to know me.
How I Started Writing
- I started writing digital copy in late 1994
- I edited and published several e-zines from ‘95 to ‘99
- I learned by trial and error the rules, laws and mechanics of writing
- I used those early contents for a hobby
To play with content and copy, allowed me to enjoy the fruits of attractive copy and advertising. Once I found headlines and copy that worked, I knew that I was into something.
My Scribomania Years
But a lot of water ran under the bridge since then. In 1998, I started to travel. I traveled around the world. I traveled for six years.
In those years I started writing every day. I wrote from around 500 to 1000 words every day. It was mostly disposable stuff. Like memories.
My Old Niches
When I owned a computer again, I wanted to write in a few niches. They were content for video games, fiction, poetry and screenplays. Personally, I think these formats aren’t as easy to write as articles or digital copy.
Poetry: Because I Love It
Maybe you need an aesthetic sensibility to write poetry. A thing that I think I have. Add to that the rare fact that I wrote a poem for the first time when I was in puberty. I never stopped writing poems. Even if from puberty until I studied poetry for the first time something like a decade had passed.
Once you learn the rules, and train your ear to notice the metrical feet of poems, it’s a downhill ride. Especially if you use good reference books, and a poetry-editing software.
Screenplays: Cutting-Edge Writing
I started studying and writing screenplays in 2004. Film scripts have many exclusive rules. Not just technical ones, but also stylistic ones.
Many persons underestimate the power of watching movies to learn to write. In my case, watching movies was central to my development as screenwriter. Of course, to watch a movie to learn doesn’t compare to reading a screenplay. Still, I won’t read a script if I can avoid it.
I read a few screenplays from start to finish. I studied many superficially. Yet, I never developed the habit of constantly reading in this format. Given this, I had to devise a method to evolve in my screenplay writing.
What I did was writing in my mind the snippets of script of the movies I watched. Doing it while I was watching them. But this also required some study. To be able to do this, I had to learn as much as I could about the format.
I’m at my best when I’m researching and writing a screenplay. The fastest script I wrote took me two months. The first month was all the research and back-story. The second, the complete first draft.
Video Game Content: Calms Down The God-Complex
More than a decade ago I wrote the content for a game. It was an interactive fiction game. These games were popular in the 1980s. They were also known as text adventures.
The content wasn’t the only thing I did for that game. I also programmed the logic of the game in the scripting language (AGT/AGX) that I used.
Writing the logic wasn’t much of a bore, but it was taxing. Still, something about writing this kind of content annoyed me more than the coding part.
To have to write different story arcs based on the player’s choices, on top of the main arc and the logic, was just too much. It wasn’t that I didn’t like to go on a tangent from a point in the story from which I had moved on. It was just too much work.
Other than that I didn’t write any more game content. Still, in this regard I found something just for me. It’s called Twine. It’s a middle ground between computer text-adventures and multiple choice fiction.
Prose and Ebooks: Name, Riches and Fame
For me prose is hard. I’m not talking about articles or the prose in short copy. I mean the greater effort required to create a professional ebook.
Once one has all the research and technical knowledge one needs to write a book, it doesn’t stop there. In my case, I get carried away easily, and this makes my prose suffer in the readability department.
Another thing that’s hard for me about writing ebooks, is the quantity of words involved. A reasonable minimum for a generic book chapter is 2000 to 5000 words. To me this is a considerable quantity of words to write daily.
I find it hard to write that quantity if it’s just one project and I have more writing to do. When I’m handling two or more additional projects, it becomes downright hard.
Selfless Content
I’ve outgrown my self-centered writing obsessions. My approach to writing today is one of service. I’m fastidiously organized, but with a purpose:
To bring, useful, entertaining and/or practical content to the reader.
I have learned that there are easier ways to live decently from one’s writing than my four obsessions.
Except screenplay writing, I have generally abandoned my original niches. Not completely, but I try not to start major projects in any of those formats.
Like one year ago I decided to become content-agnostic. To write in as many formats and niches as humanly possible.
Still, at the end of the day, you have to narrow your output to a few, otherwise any potential big picture gets diluted. I think one can get away with being format-agnostic. But niches have to be a few and approached in a focused way.
Extro
This pretty much sums up my content creation journey. Still, I don’t want to be seen as someone that wants to break into film industry. Or like someone selfish, that wants to be recognized as a great poet, screenwriter, whatever.
I just want to live decently, and make a steady income writing and doing businesses. If any of my artistic endeavors pans out, it will be satisfying, but that’s not my main incentive.
Thanks for reading!