Being deployed is rather weird, at least in my case. You see, I'm in Signal (read: communications, for those in the know, I'm a 31F), which has two, well three, activity modes: frantically setting up / tearing down equipment, troubleshooting to figure out why equipment X (or the comm link as a whole) isn't working, or bored out of my mind watching the blinking lights.

As of late, the third case has been prevalent, so I find ways to keep myself buzy. Some of it with legitimate work (correspondence courses) and some entertainment (DVD collection(s), comp/console games, posting to message boards, etc.)

It struck me recently that the sheer amount of (mostly) free time could be spent doing creative things. (sadly, no one else on my team plays RPGs) You know, write a fanfic, plot out an entire (D&D) campaign for when I get back to the states, or maybe even design a camputer game.

Then I start on a project, spend about a day on it, and just lose my momentum. I always have ideas for this or that bouncing around in my head, but when I try to put it down on paper (or Notepad), I just...draw blanks, or worse I start soldifing something, and completely loose track of where it should (or even could) fit into the big picture. It's frustrating!

So, I figure that a few veteran story crafters here may have run into a problem like this in the past and could perhaps give me a pointer or two. And maybe then I'll get some of my time creatively filled.

---
SPC Christopher Stevenson
US Army
Deployed for Operation Iraqi Freedom 2 (OIF2) since March 2, 2004
Yup, promoted. A pay raise is always a good thing

Funny you should mention that.

Y'see, I'm involved in a nifty piece of work called Unreal Estate: Open House, and I've got a story that I'm writing for it. But the problem is I've had no momentum for the past week or two now, and I've hardly written a word. Well, until tonight.

I find that if I just sit down and tack my balls to the wall for a while, I can slog through even the most boring project sooner or later. There's this hump, y'see, and everybody hits it. Eventually you pass the hump, and things start to flow again, but for a while, nothing happens. It can happen to multiple projects at one time and often does--particularly for someone like me, who has ambitions far outweighing his actual ability.

You just gotta keep at it. That's all I can say. I dunno how Gryph handles it with his Muses, but I just don't think I have that sort of patience or time. If I'm not writing something I feel treasonous. So I do what I have to do to keep myself motivated.

LAST EDITED ON 06-03-04 AT 04:55 PM (EDT)
 
Oi, I wish I could do it the way you do. Unfortunatly, being stuck here with my folks has me at a disadvantage. I hardly ever have a moment of peace.

Even more frustrating is when I do have time to sit down and work on my stuff, the ideas just won't come, no matter how long I brainstorm. The thing that has worked best for me so far is to have a friend to write with cooperatively, but I don't have such a person that lives in the area.

-NeoRaven
Edit: And BTW, thanks for the link to Unreal Estate. This is some great writing.

Well, don't get too despondent--I'm still stuck, too, so it's not like I'm suddenly getting inspiration. I'm just plugging away. I mean, hell, I only wrote two words a few days ago. And I felt accomplished for even being able to write that.

It's a pain to write, but it's a good pain.

Yes, Unreal Estate is very good indeed.

The last two years, I've put out about a quarter million words of fiction, 99% of it being Diablo fanfiction. Admittedly, the longest I've been stopped has been six months - but part of that was going to a new school and changing orders with the Navy. (Military service - promoting free time at work since I joined. ^_^) Some days, just sitting down and reading back over the previous 10-20 pages gives me ideas of where to go next, as I tend to write in a bit of an epic-style, with lots of main characters I can switch back and forth between. Other days, thinking of a particular movie, book, online story, or piece of music will give me an idea and I run with it. Some days that works for writing, other days it doesn't. I've pretty much given up on a Quest for Glory fanfic that I started ... four years ago (!) unless I start rewriting it from scratch.

If you're going to work on a campaign, sit down and draw out the map first, assuming you don't already have it. Work out the various important locations that your players would be visiting (which, depending on the scope of your campaign, can be daunting - Fallout was a major pain in the butt) and then flesh them out one at a time. Don't forget to throw in a few easter eggs too - my players ran into Bill and Ted, and Christopher Columbus (as visualized by Stan Freberg).

- AE2 BlueNinja, soldering technician