User blog:ShawnCognitionCP/A Confession of my Bad Habits as an Author

Hello, Creepypasta Wiki community. Getting up, I saw it fit to start more of an odd conversation- admitting our bad habits as authors. No way to improve without criticism and admitting there is an issue first, correct?

With myself, I have a few major issues. I thought this would be a fun practice, to help people improve their writings through getting things off their chests.


 * 16 Psyche, Coexistence, Non-Existence, Sentient Existence, Flagellation, Seasonal Hunters, The Truth of Fear, Enlightenment of a War Machine, Speak the Truth, 100, Deyja, Horror Revised: Jersey Devil, Horror Revised II: Phantom of the Opera, and Shattered Glass were all written in under a day. This includes the process of thinking them up. Some were written in as little as 2-3 hours, with Enlightenment of a War Machine not even having a basic concept as I started. It took 15 minutes to write that one. Sometimes, I simply go into notepad and ramble through text. I then upload that rambling here, if it is decent enough. Terrible thing to do as an author.


 * Tabula Rasa was written in less than a day, and I pretty much lied about "having had the idea in my head for a while" because I felt terrible about it during the contest. I believe it took about 10 hours, including the brainstorming, which took the most time. It's a bad practice in all.


 * My pacing. With the stories I don't write very fast, I take forever. In Torment took a good month. Not that bad. In Torment in Hell took 2 months. In Torment III took a few, and The Night Man took 23 days (which I actually consider pretty good pacing). When I start a massive project, I usually lose that "urge" to write about 2 chapters in, and often find myself taking a break from writing for a good 3-6 days.


 * Grammar. I take grammar very seriously when reviewing a story. I tend to be very critical on it, and find incorrect grammar to get in the way. Even with several spellchecks, I seem to have a very difficult time finding issues with spelling/grammar in my own stories. When the larger ones release (anything in the In Torment series) it usually takes a while to iron them all out, and I most likely wouldn't have meant back to fix anything if it wasn't for Mr Durpin making me away of them being there. This is what I consider the worst habit of all. One I am actively trying to beat in everything I put out, especially in the story I'm currently working on.

Well, there is my list of what I consider my biggest faults. A little confession and admittance never killed anyone.