#[ think that'll be the case for whenever i'm able to focus enough for it

[aelaer]

I love writing; I want to write I'm not able to. Whenever I open a document, ready to write, it's like my fingers get stuck, hovering over the keyboard. It is frustrating and upsetting and doesn't help my non-existing confidence and self-worth.

I know people say it helps when you talk with friends about your writing but I only have one friend and I've annoyed them enough with my writing problems (since we longer share the same fandoms). And I'm scared of people and self-isolate myself from them because my past fandom experiences weren't the best.

Aww love *big hugs* 🫂 Thank you for your trust in sharing this personal information with me. I presume that you shared it with me on the hope that I would give some thoughts and ideas on these troubles. I will do my best to give you an answer that will hopefully be of some use to you. If you just needed to let it off your chest and do not wish for thoughts and non-professional advice, please don't read beyond this paragraph. And if that's the case I just wish the best for you and hope things get better!

But if you're still reading this second paragraph, here's some of my own musings on what you've divulged. (Note - I'm not a professional health person, this stuff is from memory of things I've read and my memory may be spotty.)

The funny thing about hobbies is that they're meant to enrich your life, but oftentimes you can only easily partake in them if you're already in a good place. If you're stressed about work, school, family or friends, it gets hard to focus on things you enjoy. If your health is in the toilet, it's sometimes hard to do hobbies as well. This includes mental health.

It's a bit of a terrible cycle. You want to create, but you are too down to create, which makes you feel even more down than you were before. This is terribly common and it's such a difficult cycle to break.

How exactly do you solve it? I don't think there's an easy solution, or a solution that fits everyone. But I have the following on "things" to try split into different parts, if you want to give any of these a shot. They touch on each of the items you mentioned in your post:

Getting In The Mood To Write

Set up a sprint. Don't know what sprinting is? Here's an article about sprints. Don't have a Discord writing server where sprints are set up? Here's a free sprint site.

Is the story you *want* to write not easily coming to mind? Why not start on some writing prompts. This link has prompts that would be about 1-3 paragraphs to complete per prompt. Need more flexibility? These prompts could be answered in a couple sentences, a paragraph, or a page. None of these may be the story you've been trying to write, but they're a good way to get your muscle memory in your fingers and word-forming in your head to get started again. You can do as little or as many as you like. They can be fiction or non-fiction. You can even answer the prompts as your favorite fictional character if you'd like to for the personal writing ones.

How calm are your surroundings and your mind? This article goes into some tips about setting the mood and getting your mind prepared for the space. It also goes into the importance of the mind being in the right space for it, which goes into my next section.

Caring For Yourself

I really like the article I linked in point three because it emphasizes, in very large text, "Be kind to yourself and let it flow". This is one of the most difficult things to learn because if you've spent a long time beating yourself up for not doing the thing, not being good enough, and other self-negative terminology, that'll be deep within your psyche. Unlearning all of these negative feelings about yourself is not done in a day, or a week, or possibly not even a month or year.

One method of combating these negative feelings is by saying (out loud or on paper) positive things about yourself: that you *are* enough, that you are talented/worth it/hardworking, whatever it is to combat whatever you've been telling yourself that has lowered your self-esteem. This has to become a habit, by the way--something you schedule in your day and that you stick to like clockwork. This self-affirming self-care language is supposed to eventually sink in, because if it is so often in the upper conscious, it eventually sinks to the subconscious. Or at least, that's what the science of it says.

Depending on how long this feeling continues and how many aspects of your life it affects, you may want to consider speaking with a professional about it. If that is not a viable solution, doing some research on what you can do to help yourself could help. Just stick with reputable sites--the .edu's and the like.

One blog I really like following is @insanitysilver because of their constant positivity around writing both original and fan fiction. There's a lot of reaffirming content about being kind to yourself on bad writing days, to your WIPs, and just being a writer (and reader!) in general. This may help give you a pick-me-up in your browsing of tumblr.

Getting Into The Fandom Community

I 100% get not wanting to get into fandom again because you've had bad experiences in the past. Oh my *goodness*, I can't count all the terrible experiences I've had in online fandom spaces and online RP spaces in the 20 years I've been active online and all the hurt that came with it. Heck, I'm friends with a mutual who is also interacting with the person who told me they were disgusted that I had given kudos on their fic and said some absolutely *nasty* things to me, and we're both still active in the same fandom.

Unfortunately it comes with human interaction. If you hide from it forever, you may miss out on some absolutely amazing experiences and beautiful friendships.

Toxic people are everywhere, unfortunately, but you learn to recognize them and, in the online space, block them. And those toxic people (like the one I mentioned above) have to live with their nastiness and you start to feel sorry for them, because how sad must that person be to go out of their way to put others down in such a horrid manner?

If it's a matter of miscommunications and misunderstanding, that gets easier to deal with with experience and time. Experience is a big part of it. Have I committed some big social mistakes and major faux pas in my past? Yes, absolutely, including in the fandom I'm still active in. I have major foot-in-mouth disease, and I feel pretty bad about those! When I can, I try to repair relationships. When I can't, I've learned to apologize where I can when I'm at fault and move on. You don't need to be friends with everyone in the fandom to have a good time.

To start getting involved: joining a fandom Discord would be my recommendation. You can usually find one via Google. Some are super large, so you may want to try and find smaller shipping ones, or character-based ones as opposed to a huge community. The cool thing about this is that you can lurk for a time to see how the community interacts before stepping in, which is a nice part about Discord.

Another way to connect with folks is via tumblr. Look up the fandom tags here and start following folks who post a lot about your favorite things! First you can start with reblogs, then reblogs with tags, and then comments and asks. Baby steps at your own pace.

I definitely recommend connecting with several people if at all possible because you'll have several people to talk about fandom stuff with, and writing with, and if you have a falling out with one of them, it won't feel like you're completely out of the loop. I'd also recommend that you connect with folks who aren't all mutuals -- spread it out. In one of my largest fandom schisms several years ago, a whole RP group kicked me out because the leader was an ableist asshole. But I had several other RP partners to fall back on and to help me through the tough time. It's similar in the fandom space--you want to be friendly with several folks. That's one reason Discord is so great-- you can be in several Discord groups with a variety of people and be acquaintances, friends, and good friends with several folks. If for some reason one of the Discord groups is actually a poisonous hellhole and they're awful to you, you can back out and fall back to the other group without feeling like you've completely disconnected from everyone in fandom. There's a space for everyone.

If your fandom is my corner of the MCU, I'd recommend both the Stephen Strange Discord and IronStrange Discord. They're wholesome groups and you can comfortably lurk there until you're ready to talk about the fun stuff. If you don't have those links, just send me a follow-up ask for which one you'd like and I'll post a 7-day link.

This was pretty darn long, but I hope I could be of some assistance, if assistance was what you were looking for. Best wishes, anon--things do get better.

[mareenavee]

Okay, I want you to gimme some Varlais answers~ Because I love a disaster Thalmor

Which areas of Skyrim do they find most beautiful and most dangerous?

Do they regret journeying to Skyrim?

Who is their mentor? Who do they go to most for lessons?

What is their stance on taking a life? Do they kill without a second thought, in the name of a god or daedra, or do they adhere to pacifism?

Hehehe. Okay, alright. I'm inspired. Let's go. I'll let Linare Varlais answer these things himself. :> (From this ask game here.)

Which areas of Skyrim do they find most beautiful and most dangerous?

Hm. Skyrim. I'd say, especially now with the dragons flying about like vermin, it's likely dangerous everywhere. There is a kind of beauty though, if you ignore the danger. I'd say the most beautiful place is likely Solitude, or the surrounding mountains overlooking the ocean. It's cold, but it reminds me as much as is possible of Alinor, regardless of the snow and ice. It's still the sea and it's close enough. That said, it's still one of the most dangerous places here. There, Solstheim, Winterhold, Markarth...anywhere there is a strong Thalmor presence, honestly. You make one mistake and you're -- well. No need to worry about that. As I said, everywhere's dangerous these days.

Do they regret journeying to Skyrim?

Well, to be perfectly honest with you I never did have any choice in the matter. I've lived here most of my life. My father was a guard for -- oh. Yeah, no Ondolemar just said I shouldn't bring him up, so I won't. After a few interesting events, he was promoted to Lady Elenwen's personal guard and that opened up a lot of doors for me when I got older. The only time I get to leave this frozen boulder of a province is when I mess something up and am sent back to Alinor for retraining. After that, though...ugh. They always ship me back to Northwatch as if that'll make the difference. I do regret the mistakes, even when I can't help but make them, because I absolutely hate that fort. If I never see the inside of it again, I'll die happy.

Who is their mentor? Who do they go to most for lessons?

I think this is a complex question, and Ondolemar will kill me if I divulge too many details, maybe. But I can say this. My mother and my sister taught me everything I know about archery. My sister's skills probably outpaced Mother's, and I'm sure she could've outshone me, too, if she had survived her retraining. ... ...Yes, sorry, I was just... I was just thinking. Forgive me. Anyway. Yes, it's not possible to go to Alinor on my own right now with my current posting to train with my parents. Instead, I put all my focus behind the plan Ondolemar is working on. I look to him for guidance whenever things get a bit iffy. For me, to be honest, they usually do.

What is their stance on taking a life? Do they kill without a second thought, in the name of a god or daedra, or do they adhere to pacifism?

I am not a pacifist. Oh, but Gods would I have preferred that. No, early on I learned how it really is in this world. My parents are both veterans of the Great War, and their philosophy on the matter -- regardless of if they'd be able to form other opinions -- is that if one does not strike first, then in most cases, it gives the other person the opening they need to eliminate you. And I've seen it plenty all across Skyrim, a thousand different times. After a while, you don't think. You just aim and shoot an arrow and hope it's enough to get you out of danger. I can't say it doesn't affect me, because I do hate it. Very much. But I can't fix anything if I don't try. That said, I don't fight for a god and certainly certainly not a Daedra. I fight to remain part of the insurgence, more or less, so that I might right the wrongs done to my family first, and to my people as an extension of that.