I'm gonna have to try out this One Note thing!


Back in TPOTM days and very start of Original Isilme I would write every single post in word and save it. I'd do hr breaks any time there was a new post, and use large font for thread titles. I'd make a new document once it got to 25 pages or so, because then it would scroll forever or sometimes lag.
I actually have basically all my old TPOTM posts saved in gmail <___< of course I only have my end, but sometimes it's fun to go back and read them, albeit I don't do it often.

I wish I could get back into that style, because I like being able to keep them. I really wish I had all of Gunslinger and Oblivion's old posts now :( also if I go to post my post and the internet eats it, then I don't curse the world because word has it.

I'm not sure why I stopped doing it...


I have to have music playing when I post though. I CAN make a decent post without it, but I really feel I need it to get in the zone. I also generally prefer to be alone when I write, or at least not near people who know me and will interact with me. I often times catch myself making faces when I'm writing a post, trying to imagine what my character's face looks like or just channeling their emotion I suppose. I don't even realize I'm doing it until I'm like "why are my lips tired? Oh because at some point I lifted them up into a snarl o_o;"

So also want to be alone because EMBARRASSING.

Music though, really helps set my mood for a character, which is why making a playlist is one of my steps whenever I make a new character. Each one I've ever had has had a playlist, which I do adapt as I play them, and sometimes songs may repeat for characters by the mood and the whole of all the songs is never the same for each one. Well, except Ignatius' line that I played, his all had the same playlist lol. FIRE AND ASHES AND DEATH pretty much.


I definitely agree with you on the theme idea. Any time I design a character they definitely have a core theme or defining feature that sorta becomes their core, and then through posting and experiences layers of personality get added around that core.

I often time end up killing characters once I feel that their experiences had built up so much that their core changes. I am not against changing with my character, but the reason books end with 'they live happily ever after' is because happy sunshine life afterwards is dull. This is why it can be hard once a character achieves everything they want, so I always try to aim high, sometimes unrealistically so. Muse feeds on misery ;D

In the opposite end sometimes if a character fails too much or just never became what I wanted them to be in an early age then it's better for me to let them go.

I don't follow these rules necessarily. I never decide, okay this character needs to die because they're too happy. I base it on how my muse has been writing them lately, how much spare time I have for a character that is difficult to write (when meanwhile I have 475475 new ideas I wanna try), and how much sense it makes for the character.

I dunno, I just think it can be fun for the site for characters to die too. The hardest part for me is not that I don't get to play them again, but that all their pretty tables can no longer be used, lol. Of course abyss and adoption are options as well, but sometimes they need to die, it often makes good plots for other still living characters too and just realistically to me more would be dying often anyway.

IDK HOW I GOT ON THIS TANGENT.


As far as the actual writing goes, I really have no set method, I just sit down and start.

I'm pretty much the bane to all english teachers who in school always wanted outlines and rough drafts, and definitely it comes off in my posts, as sometimes I forget things I meant to mention or should have mentioned or the post just wanders around like my mind, but editing it too much is not only time consuming but muse eating. Spars are the only time where I really pick through my post, but even then I don't really plan things out. I just generally let the character take it where it goes and it's worked so far - it's difficult to explain honestly, I know if I sat down to the same post with each of my characters every reply would be largely different, both in what happens in the post and how it is written.

I will sometimes have a different new/weird style for a character, but for the most part I just do the normal third person, past tense, narrative style and just let the character's personality and traits make it their own.

I personally know I have some trends.
-- I like to start a post with dialogue a lot -shrugs-
-- I like dashes and semi-colons a bit too much, especially once I figured out how to use a damn semi-colon (although I probably still do it wrong sometimes.)
-- I can definitely be rambly and I'm sure I've hand run on sentences.
-- Typos? Oh definitely with me :P
-- ALL OF THE SIMILIES

Among others I'm sure.

A fun game I've always thought is to have people write without you knowing the player or character and see if you can figure out who the writer is just off the style of their writing and not their character.

Another fun game to play to help you get in the groove is to ask the same question to each character and figure out how they would respond.
"What would you do if your home was being invaded?"
"What would you do if you found a companion egg?"
etc.

The best are of course absurd ones like,
"What would you do if Mauja sat next to you on the bus to school?"

I use to like making those up and responding to them but haven't had much time recently. Good for luls.




Anyway, I must go to work!
However I can say the most important thing for me to post, is just to sit down and start it. Everything else is just a bonus, and doesn't even always help. But in my time I have found just starting to write it is the best way to start making it, even if that sometimes means forcing yourself over the first minutes of feeling like you don't want to post or what have you.