DISCOVERING LOST STORIES FROM MY OLD COMPUTER // dystopia, crutch characters, & fear of no new ideas
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- Опубліковано 8 вер 2024
- This was my laptop way back in 2010 so some of these stories were written over a decade ago!!! Let's roast me a little bit, talk about crutch character names, the pitfalls of the dystopian genre, and the fear not getting anymore ideas!!
☟↓ QUESTIONS FOR YOU BELOOOOOW! ↓☟
D I S C U S S I O N Q U E S T I O N S :
Do you have a file with little ideas/nuggets for stories??
What comes to you first: a character, quote, scene, location, etc.??
Are you someone with a never-ending list of ideas or someone who worries about where/when their next idea will come to them??
What's been your favorite discovery from an old laptop or old notebook? Can you see your growth as a writer?
Do you have a crutch character name that you always use? Whether by accident or as filler until you find the real name you want??
LOTS OF QUESTIONS THIS TIME! :)
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Kate: "Oh, Ancient Scrivener, look at you!"
Me: That's what mine still looks like! :) (Still waiting for the Windows update.............)
Same
I use the free beta-version of Scrivener 3 for Win. It works okay actually but, to be honest, I see not that many differences except design.
Which is why I haven't used Scriv in forever. It's been too dang long since the "release date" and I'd rather just use something else, like Dabble and Word.
Same! Although I've edited mine to look completely different
I have the “shiny ideas box”. Literally just that a glitter covered gift box filled with notes on all sorts of pieces of paper, unused napkins, etc. it can be anything from a line, a piece of dialogue, a dream or even weird song lyrics. Anytime I am looking for a new idea I just dig into the box!
I love that idea because it's kind of like a little surprise to your future self, you never know what you'll pick out!
Kate: Ancient Scrivener!
My Scrivener doc looking exactly like that
SILLY ME. I thought they'd changed the Windows version. 🙃
@@KateCavanaugh 3 is in Beta for Windows. We'll get it eventually.
@@wallacejames221 ...so nothing new the last year? Scrivener 3 for windows was supposed to be released 2019 last I heard.
@@Pysslis It says it's going to be released in early 2021 now. I'm not saying I believe them, just that that's what I see. I know it got delayed a ton due to a lot of external issues.
@@wallacejames221 it’s here!!
I'm not even a writer but I have a whole Google doc full of story ideas, ranging from one quote I liked to a full on outline with character and setting descriptions lol
Maybe one day I'll get to them
"Bob" shows up in every thing. He's always around.
Good ol' Bob!!
My first story's main character was Bob.
I still have my first attempt at writing a story, and the first story I ever finished writing. Looking back is great, because you can clearly see how far you've grown. And how cringey you used to be
Old stories are so fun! It's interesting to see what changed and what sort of ideas and themes you keep coming back to
Back when I first starting writing like 3 years ago I used to only have 1 or 2 ideas at once. Then i started to write more, going from 3-4 hours a week to like 10, and all of the sudden i would have more story ideas, it is actually a problem i currently have 27 fully fleshed out ideas. Enough to take me 30 years to write.
I have like 120, probably way more as I've been having more stoy ideas this past few months.
“We have all our lives to continue to get better at this thing that we love so much” - beautifully said! Growth is such a wonderful part of writing 🥰
88 single-spaced pages??? that's like 44,000 words
Wow!!! Try to salvage it when you have free time. *insert hysterical laughter here* You are doing great. I hope when you are ready to publish under Kate Cavanaugh that you will let me read an ARC ? or maybe, beta read?
You amaze me with all the balls you're juggling every day. Sending love and hugs. :D
Absolutely Regina!!!! :) and bahahah yes, 1 day! 🤞
You have a James, I have a Jennifer, she turns up in every one of my stories ... unintentionally ...
We need to come together and combine them into their own story 1 day. And then we can never use those names again bahahah
I have a Julia.... What's with the J names?? Bahahahaha
Mine is Luna
I have a Josephine
I have an Oliver / Olivia
I used to not have many ideas at a time (especially for original works), but once I picked a genre and started self-publishing, the more I wrote, the more ideas I had. Now, I have to work really hard to avoid "shiny new object" syndrome when I'm trying to finish a project!
Omg The lost Cavanaugh files, this video is so exciting haha I have so many lost documents and it makes me so sad, hopefully, one day I'll be able to get to them again so I can cringe at past me XD
I write down my dreams because they usually come as story ideas... so most of my notes start with this is going to sound stupid in the morning
My favorite one recently was so how do you taste magic?? You spit it. 🤣🤣🤣
I find it super encouraging how similar you are to me in the ideas (or how you were similar). I always get random ideas here and there, but I never have the drive to write the novels to go along with. In most cases, I get an idea I love, start writing bits, then give up because something is wrong with my idea, the writing itself, or I just don't have time to work on it right now. I'm getting better at not giving up on my ideas though.
Usually when I get ideas, I write them down in my phone's notes app and put them in a word document later. Some are full-blown novel ideas that have a basic plot already, but most are random thoughts I had just going through life. One idea for an example is "Romeo and Juliet, but Juliet's not an idiot" which I wrote down after reading Romeo and Juliet in grade 9. In most of the stories I actually write I get an image in my head of what's happening and am so inspired that I just sit down and write it. Starting with a theme or point I want to communicate usually doesn't work well for my writing process.
Kate: It took at least five minutes to turn on
My dumbass that thought it was six hours: 👁👄👁
Bahahah! Comparatively 5 minutes doesn't sound too long. But the 5 minutes between each click and process felt like it added up to 6 hours bahahah.
Kate I've been writing professionally for almost 10 years and I absolutely love your channel. Been following since 2019 i think. I am so looking forward to your stories. You're having to pioneer new ways to publish content (the publishing and literary world has changed so much and like other industries has been heabily disrupted). You are a true modern creative professional in the way you are handling your career. What an inspiration for the next gen of writers. This is what they need: the nitty gritty, not just some random quotes from famous writers. Based on your story premises alone you might become my first favorite author 😊 (judging wholly as a human and creative pro and not just the success of a hit book/series)
I have like 5 pages of ideas for stories and books, but I only work on one story at a time. There once was a time where I wrote 7 different stories, but that was when I was younger, 4th grade, and less experienced. Now, I dedicate my time to one story and I have become more connected than I ever have before to a story.
I love this, looking back at past stories is so fun! I just found two old laptops myself 🤔 maybe I should go look...
There are old notebooks that had early novels in them that I've never found around. Probably lost forever. It's crazy to look back on old stories and wonder "wtf was I thinking about?" xD
I swear that you even make compiling files fun to watch!
During (I think the first) lockdown I was clearing out a cupboard and found a box with three binders of old writing. Starting from the age of 12 and going up to about 18/19 (so from 1992-1999ish) These were all handwritten...some typed, as is an actual type writer because we didn't even have a PC until I was 16. It was very basic writing, mainly action scenes with a bit of dialogue for exposition, but they were all linked like a soap. I can see when I started to use actual plot development and even some multi-plot stories. It was cool to see how much my writing changed during that time and it is very different to what I dabble with now. What is impressive is the creation of extremely detailed character and relationship profiles...whether this character goes by a nickname, date of birth, fashion style etc, colour coded and with a little key (again all hand written)...I was dedicated/ OCD about it for sure.
i recently rediscovered a bunch of stuff from like ten years ago... had a whole file of "character profiles" that were just like, really basic things with personality blurbs, likes/dislikes, a little background history, name meanings, etc. the actual story itself is pretty EHHH but the world concept is one of my favorites, so i might go back and do something with it again one day... characters and world concepts usually come first for me, since i love world building and most of my stuff is character-driven lmao.
as for crutch names i've had "daniel" show up in more than one draft. i don't even know any daniels in real life, which makes this funnier imo
I hope you’re keeping warm out there, Kate!
As for ideas, I’m of the Brandon Sanderson thought process that ideas are cheap. I have ideas jumping from my brain regularly, but have a strong group of unwritten books now. I have at least 8 outlines either done or half done currently as I continue to flesh out my world building and magic systems.
I have written the first part of a story with an elven assassin, and will soon begin the next part of her story while completing a short story with the origins of a sorcerous cult within my world. I’m having fun with it all!
I have a tooooon of 1-5 line story concepts saved in my phone going back to like 2011. They are almost all dreams where I’m half asleep writing the bare minimum thinking “this is perfect I’ll remember the rest in the morning and finish it.” Then usually two years later I stumble on it again and usually have no clue what I was trying to say.
your videos make a day better!!!
I write all ideas down in my one note so I can come back to later. Its great cause when you are out of ideas, you can string some together. To me everything is usable from facts, questions, lyrics, dreams etc.
I have multiple files on my phone and laptop as well as various notebooks filled with ideas. However, whenever I try to write them, my characters always take it in a vastly different direction so the concept always turns out differently (if the project is completed at all).
Also, my 'crutch character name' is Chris.
I just found some mid-late 2000s, early 2010s fanfiction when we cleaned out the loft. I was really obsessed with CSI Miami... to be honest, while the pacing is criminally out of whack, and I knew almost nothing about writing craft, it actually does hold up pretty well. I had a few laughs, but it was not bad.
I only recently started a doc keeping track of story ideas. I am someone who has a plethora of them. Normally my ideas start with the main character. The other way I get story ideas are through worldbuilding concepts.
And like you I definitely have OLD story ideas that I can see how they have shifted and changed over the years. And other OLD ideas that are better left trunked.
I think that each author has some ideas and concepts in them which have to be put down on paper before their mind is free for new ideas. Also I think there are concepts we never lose - like themes. And yes I do have those idea files - I actually published two books via PoD (which I wasn't aware of at that time. It was called Ferromir - today I would call it Collection of tropes and some powerfantasies :D
I have two novels with villains named Natasha. loved watching this video! I have a drawer full of old manuscripts at my parent's house that I used to get distracted by every time I tried to tidy. it's so fun to re-read old ideas!
It's so much fun to go back and read old stories you've written! I just went on a hunt to find any remnants of my first nano back in 2010 when I was about 13, and it's so funny to read now. I think that, compared to when I was around that age, I do have less story ideas, but the ones that I have now are more complete story ideas. Which is maybe a little bit sadder but 100x more helpful hahahaha.
Haha, good to know I’m not the only one with “idea folder”😄
Poor Death. Sin is the bad guy but Death always takes the blame.
You have a James and I have a Ryan. Ryan always shows up in my story as a villain.
I have stacks of notebooks and I love reading the old stories and ideas. Hailie-Storm was a character I came up with when I was twelve and Spy Dad and Gaizaka had their first drafts (yes, 50,000+ words each) when I was fifteen. My writing has improved a lot but younger me had lots of good ideas
I love looking at old stories and see how much I've learned, even in the last year or two. Also I have a million one liners and small ideas on my notes app on my phone. Some of them I have no idea what I was trying to say haha.
This kinda makes me want to drag my first HP out of the closet (circa 2009 and Windows Vista) and see if it would fire up. But to stories you've forgotten, I've recently found some from the last four years that I have no idea where I was going with them. So I started a list in my bullet journal of active wips with a story summary, and that is right beside my list of story ideas. Wish I'd started doing that a long time ago.
I've read somewhere that James used to be Arthur Conan Doyle crutch name and that he called JIM Moriarty's brother James too. I hope it's true, I find it hilarious! XD
I actually recently looked back through my first NaNo project from 2014 and made the discovery that I reused a name in my current 2020 WIP - Salice. And even weirder, they were both the villian's henchmen. It was so wild to me, I couldn't believe it lol
Back in Grade 6 (I am 25 now) I wrote a short story called the Dead Cottage, about a couple of kids who go on a ghost investigation to a haunted cabin and are assailed by skeletons and ghosts. Totally unreadable now, one long run on sentence. But my grandma sent me the original she had kept all these years and I am rewriting. Also, crutch character is Thomas :P
My really old stories are still on plain old paper, never typed up. I was eleven back then, didn't possess a computer
I used to have 3-4 stories going at any given time in various stages of production, plus at least a dozen ideas on the backburner just percolating in my head... a lot of them are still there.
But these days study commitments and lab data is pretty much filling up most of my noggin.
*btw - I know you're a stats nerd, if you're ever into REALLY running data analytics, take a look at SPSS for statistical analysis, or "R", but R is super hardcore, so maybe just SPSS
This is literally going to be me within the next few years. I have so many folders with ideas and unfinished drafts, it's insane.
Um ... , definitely a plethora. I have around ten notebooks of ideas. Some are just one-liners, others have a complete synopsis and character profiles. Some are based on songs and/or the titles. But what's funny is some of the notebooks are organized by genre because I keep my contemporary writings separate from my fantasy/sci-fi works. I have never understood how I can pile up on notebooks, but they get filled up. I used to write everything in notebooks (because I did not own a laptop of my own when I started writing) so most of my notebooks are the first drafts of some stories. Recently, I came across an old story that takes place on a cattle ranch and the MC goes on a cattle drive. I want to rewrite it, not just because it is missing a big chunk of the story (its nowhere in my writing world, cannot find it), but because it I want to see the romance play out again. I think it was my first full-length novel. Above 40k words for sure. lol
Crutch name: Emma or Emmy
Rewatching this right now and just realized that my "James" was "Jessie". Every character's name was Jessie when I started... I also had some other names I always used (Jason, Keith, Adam)... I just took names from characters and celebrities I liked. It's a lot of fun to see what kind of writer we all were back when we started.
I wish I could discover some of my old stories. I used to post so much fanfiction on Geocities websites back in the day. I'd love to read them and roast myself haha.
Self roasts are the best roasts!
Yep - Scrivner for windows still looks like that. And, is still a pain in the butt to export from. Great trip down memory lane.
I've got an old external drive from when I had a mac that I can't access now, sometimes wonder if my old drafts are on it. Will check it one day.
I've had Scrivener for probably 6 months now and Kate calling it "ancient scrivener" is.... sending me.
I know this video is old but I just 🤣💀 found some old files of my own and oh dear. I needed the relatable vibes here
This is so me! Random files on old hardrives, forgotten stories, odd snippets of ideas. No idea what I was thinking at the time. It's good to read something old, not remember you wrote it, and realise it doesn't totally suck.
I just revisited old stories! I came across my first attempt at a novel which was an extremely cringey, tacky vampire boarding school story that I wrote when I was 12!!!! 😂😂 I’m now 21, so you can imagine 😂 it was hilarious and fun to read those terrible terrible words
My crutch name I keep plopping into stories is Milo. I have no idea why but it's been my placeholder for a while. I like the name but when I assign a character Milo by the time the story is getting close to finished the name no longer fits. I'll use it eventually but I haven't found the correct story yet. As far as story ideas I have 2 or 3 Scrivener files filled with quips, ideas, bits of poetry and a host of other things I find interesting. It's almost like my writing notebook where I just jot down stuff. The last couple weeks I have been mining those files for short story ideas. So far so good.
My crutch name for male characters was also James for a while. Once I got tired if that or had a story with more than one, I'd default to Matt and Mark. Now I switch between Adam and Will
omgggg i used to have that exact same Dell in that exact same color!! i also have a chaotic note on my phone with bits of dialogue, premises, ideas for titles, and a lot of fantasy worldbuilding ideas.
I forgot about phone notes, YES! I have a bunch I downloaded off my old phone ages ago, I need to go back through it! Bahahah
the idea file!! i keep mine on milanote so i can scribble it on my phone in the middle of the night! ideas aren't my biggest concern...time and skill, that's another story!
I have a file of all my story ideas. I usually write a brief synopsis of what I was going for, maybe some character work. But I have commitment issues so they usually just stay in the file 😂
Yeah windows scrivener still looks like that
I don't have a specific crutch name but have to actively stop myself from using names that end in ie or y, or could have nicknames that end in ie or y.
I found some of my first stories I wrote at 13-years-old. I cringed, I was trying so hard to not be bland with the language, that I didn't really think about the words I was using. Some of it is so bad I was crying with laughter.
Looking through ancient documents can be so much fun... but sometimes it's just "What was I thinking?" 😅
I’m so glad I’m not the only one who has entire documents of just one word or phrase about a story idea!!
Okay.. 13 yr old Aimee was amazing.. if you asked her. I revisited the story and I cried so hard. It was only a few years later but I had improved so much. The idea was all over the place and very dramatic but I couldn't touch it. I have actually taken the spine out of it and am making it darker and more fantasy. My shiny ideas go on my pinterest! They instantly get a new board and I PIN PIN PIN. Pin everything. Now, I have a lot of boards but it's nice to see visual triggers.
Ancient Scrivener Look at you!
Looks in waiting for update. I loved the beta in 2019 and am patiently waiting the update
I have to many story ideas. I need to go through my old floppy disks if they still work to see if any of my very early stories are on there.
Crutch names for female MCs are Daisy and Annie, so I wrote them into specific storylines. I still used Daisy in two different published stories for different characters. Then there's Anneliese, Annie, Marnianne, and Jeannie
I love this! I legit just found documents of mine with WIP's in them from 2-3 years ago! I've been holding out on reading them because I want to stream on either IG or UA-cam, I think it'll be so fun reading my old work 😂
jep... windows scrivener still looks like that... (I'm so jealous of all the mac users out there, because Scrivener for Mac is so pretty...) Also: it is hillarious to read old stories
I do not have a plethora of ideas, but the ideas I do have tend to be pretty fleshed out when they come to me.
I’ve used the name Asher quite a bit...
Idk if this really counts as a crutch name, but when I wrote stories as a kid, my protagonists were always named something that started with an A. Especially April, for some reason.
Of course, this was when I was like...ten. So the protagonists were all essentially self-inserts haha. And my name starts with an A too so that’s probably why.
Holy shit we had the same laptop????? I had to look for mine to make sure but yep, that's the same one XDDDD It's also been retired, but damn, what a blast to the past it was to see you holding that iconic blue laptop. It was my first laptop and god I miss the color XDDD
I've read through some old stories which were all connected in a world I had built back then, and now I'm using much of it for a DnD campaign I might DM in the future
I've never related to anything more than watching this. It's interesting to see it from a different perspective.
This was so cool to see :) I have a folder of .wps (old Microsoft Works files) that I wrote back when I was a teen (I'm 34 now!). And because I am technologically dumb, I have been trying all kinds of different ways to convert them effectively, with no luck so far. So I'm kinda stuck just reading bits and pieces of them in the weird text files that they automatically converted to. One day maybe! But it's still super interesting to see that and to see what my teenage brain was doing at the time. Ideas usually come to me in the form of short stories, which I write, and then morph into novels later on. At least that's what's naturally happening right now, but who knows in the future! My brain is a big mess and scramble of ideas though XD
I love doing just this! I've got poetry from when I was younger on my old laptop so I just went and hunted it out!
I don’t ever worry about having an idea to work on. It’s more like worrying about what I should focus my time on where I’m at. I definitely have too many snippet files too 🙃
back when I used word docs I did the exact same thing as you where I had new files where there might be a phrase or a sentence and it is crazy to look at. Because I haven't been writing a lot in the past few months I do worry a lot that I won't have that next story idea, that nothing new will come next. I have stuff that I am working on slowly and even though I have probably hundreds of old ideas. I still get that little bit of anxiety that I won't know what to do next.
I both have a plethora of ideas and unfinished projects ... AND still worry those might be my last ideas ever :D
I have a Scrivener project called "Story Writing and World Building" and a Random Ideas folder within that project for every random writing idea. Many of these are plot ideas, some are character names, and others are just things I thought were cool ideas. Looking over it, I have one file called "DOUBLE GAUNTLET SWORD???!" with no more information than that. =/
Bahahah!!! That's the best/worst. Because you were clearly SO EXCITED and were like "Future Me will totally know what I mean" and then actual Future You is like ".....?"
But double gauntlet sword does sound pretty awesome!
Omg I love going back and looking at my old work lol thank you google drive and me keeping all my handwritten works cause LOL I was poor and didn’t get a computer till I graduated high school
I think you might attain some level of Urban Fantasy inspiration from N. K. Jemisin’s The City We Became... if you are looking for something recently published to serve as a flint stone. Possibly a Honing river stone.
I'm always looking for something to serve as a flint stone! And The City We Became has been up there for my top new releases to check out! I definitely need to get my hands on it. Thanks Charles! :)
Same🤣, I use James as a main character in my books, on of them is actually called, HOMO.Sapien James and the Renegade priest 🤣🤣
my first attempt at a novel was both on an ancient computer and in a notebook, both of which i no longer have and I'm kind of glad that they're lost. It was a trip XD
Ahhh this makes me want to go back and read all my old forgotten stories lol and oddly enough I also used James as a placeholder name a lot
I found a ton of my old stories and notes on my external hard drive, and most of the ideas and plots are so good. I am jealous of myself -_- Back when I has docs with 70K words stories and now I need some prompts to write short fanfic...
I find alot of old stories in old notebooks. That I 've started but did not finish.
The first story I ever wrote was written before I could... write. Heh. I illustrated it and had my mom write in the story I came up with for me.
I recently just went through all of my old backed up scrivener files too! for me, i download the entire .scriv file and then opened it. It should then ask you to update your file and it should transfer to the newest scrivener version. at least that's how it worked for me!!
so i think wht's happening is google drive is treating the .scriv file as a folder because it can't open into scrivener from there!! which is why it messed up i think. :)
Crutch names! I totally have mine. Most common and now have finally found a story I want to actually use it in...Ana. Excited I finally have a story she fit in! 😆 🤦♀️
Same. Same.
My current laptop is 6 years old and, well, showing its age. I was also going through an old backup, from a previous computer and found a short book-length manuscript that I had honestly forgotten about. In my defense, that book draft was from 2003 or 2004. Have you guys ever invented a character name and realized you had unwittingly named your character after someone famous? I once named a character Richard Hammond, who also happens to be a reasonably famous BBC presenter. I was really into Top Gear at the time, so that's my excuse.
My crutch name is also James! I have probably 6 or 7 drafts were the MC or the love interest is named James. It's also my husband's favorite and also middle name. LOL
Oh, the joy of finding old writings :D I never wrote on laptop (never had one to begin with) so I don't have to go through the struggle of getting the files out of an old one, but I have notebooks all around my room in various places and sometimes I just randomly find one and I start reading and when did it get so dark outside? :'D
Also, the name that always appears in my stories is Róbert and its variations (Robert/Robi/Rob).
You make me wanna go open my old PC and dig in! Where/how did you make your scene calendar?
YESSSSSS, do it!!! It's so funny and now I have at least 3 stories I'd like to return to someday bahahha.
@@KateCavanaugh Great! Can't wait! I'd love to Beta for you. Keep us posted!!!
I’m glad I’m not the only one who uses Google Docs to write! 😂
I have story ideas on 3 computers and like 5 notebooks
The most depressing thing about this is that Scrivener Windows still looks exactly horrible like this. One day they'll release the beta that looks *slightly* better than that, even though still not even half as good as Mac Scrivener...one day. ✊🏻😞
Oh noooooo! I remember being so confused when I got old scrivener and it not looking like / having the capabilities of my friend's and we kept trying to figure out where they put things....only to realize they just weren't included in the Windows version.
Mac Scrivener is awesome
@@heartmommyinpa we know, which is why the community has been begging for Scrivener Windows to be similar but we're not getting it.
Yes I used to use crutch names! All of my protagonists from my stories in high school were all named Aidan or Lucas 😂
LOL I’m glad I’m not the only one that used James for a while there 😂😂
Such a good filler name! Bahahah. Even when we don't realize it's filler. 🙃
Now I really want to know what your scrivener looks like!
I have old journals that I recently read. What a weird discovery!
Will you return to all the old stories?
Sometimes my ideas..... frightening!!!! Not sure what time you tell yourself......stop the ideas.....they have to make sense to the reader!!!