Amassment Message Board

Hi all! This is a great event and I am really excited about my topic, however, I cannot seem to work on it. I was wondering if anyone else is hitting a wall with their topic? What are you doing to get back on track? What things are inspiring you right now to work on your site?

(One of my issues might be the fact that I took on way too many projects and I am so close to finishing a personal art project that I can't seem to work on my sites right now...)

Hello yes this is me. Personally I'm really bogged down by life stuff so I just don't want to work on site stuff at all; I haven't even touched any fansite stuff in over a month now. :(

I'd love to get some inspiration back, but with Nanowrimo coming up, the creative energy I have is going into writing. Site stuff just seems to be taking the backburner right now, as much as I'd like to get this and other sites up and finished already.

Some advice from my crazily creative scatterbrained experience: Block out a 15-minute period of time when the ONLY thing you're working on is your site. Then, at the end of 15 minutes, you can either go back to doing whatever you need to do otherwise, or set aside another 15-minute window of time for another project, and so on.

This is just about the only way I get anything done anymore because I'm so A.D.D. about all my responsibilities and projects. I find that it helps me focus ALL my creative energy into ONE thing, instead of me feeling like a 4-year-old getting dragged around the yard by a writhing garden hose of creativity. I end up feeling less daunted because it's "only 15 minutes."

(Alternatively, you can set it up by task instead of by time--do one thing for your web project per day. One day you might make the layout or part of the layout; the next day you might write up one of the pages; the day after that, you might make the site buttons, and so on. Just keep it to one thing at a time.)

It's kind of dumb, but the best thing I've found that works for me, aside from a big lull in work, is having the character's wiki page open. Reading it gives me a starting point to word-vomit.

@Larissa ugh yeah I feel you. I haven't touched my sites in months, either.

@Birdie that is a good idea! Maybe next time I have to sit and work on stuff I will try that! A little here and there can go a long way. ;)

My other problem is that Oct-Dec is the busiest season and we have lots planned to do for Jan-Mar. ;_;

Nyx, I do the wiki pilgrimage too! Also just reading things about your subject (or just looking at the source material) usually turns on the OMG I LOVE THIS I MUST WRITE ABOUT THIS.

Alternatively, a thing that's very important for me is talking to someone about the first proto-ideas I had, and usually the conversation itself will lead to figuring out more things. But that's a very personality-dependent approach.

Larissa wrote:Hello yes this is me. Personally I'm really bogged down by life stuff so I just don't want to work on site stuff at all

Same. I have no enthusiasm for working on sites right now, hopefully it'll come back. I also think I'm not particularly inspired by my subject right now, so I might do a different topic if that doesn't change. I'm thinking I might do a rewatch of the series or something. If I decide to give NaNo a try this year, it'll definitely be December by the time I get around to working on things.

I would basically like more time and energy to do things!

@Dubs, I do the same thing about talking out ideas. Stuff will just OCCUR to me as I'm talking (or more likely blathering), and then my mind is BLOWN again and I have about 1000% more stuff to add to my site, LOL

I've been having trouble getting motivation myself. I haven't really worked on my sites in months. Made a FL collective and did a couple minor Tidus updates, and that's about it. I am so slow when it comes to making new sites.

For my Wolverine site, I'm taking a new approach. I plan to write up basics on his character, like a general profile, and then change the navigation to "Wolverine - Fanlisting - Site" (Right now it just has the fanlisting pages). Then, I will add and link articles to the Wolverine section under the profile as I write them. I'll basically be building the site online, adding pages as I go. I think this is a unique, different, low-pressure way to make a site, and I want to try it out. Now, this site has a fanlisting so it already has a reason for visiting (and will be why most people visit it until I get far along into the fan site portion). I'm not sure how well this would work for a site that's not a fanlisting.

This is something I did while writing fanfics but it works for shrines too: listen to music that reminds you of the character, that way even if you need to so something else, that little reminder will be there, preparing you to work on the site so that when you have a moment of free time (such as the 15 minutes Robin mentioned) you'll jump on it. Another thing I do is work at random whenever there's a spare moment, I type on my iPod and though it may be disconnected at first, when I revise it I can complete all the thoughts and actually have something to start with.