Was writing easier for you when you were younger? (+poll)

[Black_Conscious]

....Idk I am Still Young, But I Would Say my Mindset Has Change a lot since I was Small, So I Guess, It Has Helped me Write Better Then Before, but I would Like to Think that After each year there is an Improvement On what you are working On whether Writing, Drawing Or Anything Else

[ToxicRamen]

I did when I was younger because I came up with lots of ideas even some that were similar to cartoons & comics I've seen. But now I'm trying to too hard to be more original with my ideas and my ideas tend to change frequently.

[thedude3445]

Except for 2016 I have increased my wordcount per year every single year since 2010, in prose and other mediums. As I understand the medium better and get my outlining process more refined, writing becomes easier and easier and I quite enjoy it.

[DiegoPalacios]

Yes and no......

on one side, when i was a kid, i had no filter so i just tried what i thought it would be cool or funny, on the other side i got bored too quickly so i rarely finished anything.

[ble]

I never wrote down when i was younger. I had story ideas or crazy imaginary stuff sure, but I just kept them on my head, i mostly draw a lot, never did the actual "writing process". Even to this day, I still do a little of that, that's why i never consider myself a writer lol. Just someone with weird imagination.

Shouldn't this be on the writing / novel category?

[indagold]

No it was a nightmare of me not knowing what the hell I was doing and having no planning or buffers or skills meant that my work took eons to finish and drained whatever free time I had. I knew what I was making was shit but I kept going because I felt I couldn't wuss out and abandon it praying it'd get a fanbase which never happened.

[NickRowler]

I say no, one part being I was so dyslexic I could hardly write a thing. And also part, when it came to stories I brainstormed, they were mostly fanfics or just doing my version of some else’s story. Like coming up with how I would create a wizard/witch school after I read Harry Potter.

[malwdark]

It was easier because I wasn't aware of how messy my stories were and I didn't plan anything, it was just chaotic fun.
Now its harder because I try to keep it organized and make sense xD
On the other hand, I used to care a lot about making credible adult characters back then. Now I know adults are dumb so no problem with them making lots of mistakes.

[Pomms]

I think that the best thing about writing as a kid was mostly that there were no fears about other people's opinions and you could do whatever - nobody would read it anyway!

However, as my writing progressed, I started creating better structures and more defined characters. Things were written because they made sense for the story, and not because it was what I wanted it to happen, even if it didn't make sense.

.

[Penni]

Writing was actually harder for me when I was younger, mostly because I didn't have a good support system that encouraged me to write. But I did have the luxury of doing whatever I wanted since I didn't know what I was doing anyway

[jcmraz]

Yes. Because I was much worse at it. I could sit down and just write. It was all bad but I didn't have that internal metric or quality filter that needed to make things make sense or tell a good compelling story. I could just self-insert and fantasize. Now I have that pesky interest in making something good. And also I don't like reading those types of things anymore so I don't want to write them.

[AmysGames]

Hm, I'm not quite sure. I feel like, as other people have said, I was a lot less inhibited when I was younger, since I definitely came up with all sorts of creative story ideas. Looking back on it though, a lot of them were just that—ideas. I rarely wrote actual completed stories, ignoring major plot points and focusing more on random filler.

So, yes, I guess I had an easier time coming up with creative concepts when I was younger, but also no, because I had a harder time actually putting together a full story. I guess that's why most of my stories are adapted from stuff I came up with as a kid: I had the ideas back then, but now I have the ability to actually do something with them.

[amortelito]

Yes, it was easier to write when I was younger.

But the script was trash because I didn't know better. Ideas flowed faster but that doesn't mean they were good. I cringe when I read my past stuff.

[Puck]

Drawing and writing was faster but I also didn´t care about anything.
I would draw 10 pages a day with my brother in the kitchen and I didn´t think one
second, just write while I´m drawing. The stories were all the same and didn´t make
any sense and the figures looked awful which I also didn´t care about. But it
was very entertaining and that´s why I love drawing with my nieces, they just
don´t care about things that I bust my head over, just drawing and having
fun

[Azifri]

Not at all! I was very insecure, critical and aware of my limitations when I was a child/teen, spent so much time overthinking and researching before getting stuff written, and the product was still garbage because I just didn't have enough experience and knowledge. I was also so afraid of my stories being bad that I never showed them to anyone, so I didn't even know if they were understandable to someone other than me. It wasn't until I was over 20 that I finally felt that my stuff was becoming good enough to share it. Thankfully I never completely stopped creating and kept most of my old notes, and have been able to recycle some of them.

[Legendofgenii]

No. I’ve lived a lot since then and have a wealth of life experiences and adventures I can now tap into.

I didn’t have as many responsibilities when I was younger though, so I was probably more productive.

[darthmongoose]

It was easier to write a lot of words when I was a teenager because I had so much free time and just churned out whatever with no planning or thought, but it wasn't good, like basically nobody wanted to read what I was making, so I don't really count it. Literally anyone who has access to the basic means to write words on paper or a screen and has time can write lots of words, but writing stuff people want to read or especially publish is a whole different ballgame.

When I wanted to start writing more professional content, it was a lot harder when I was younger because the resources I was directed to were very fluffy and assumed people just pick things up instinctively through osmosis, so they say stuff like "just write!" and it's like... but I've written so many fanfics, that clearly isn't working for me!" I felt sort of despairing like "people keep telling me my stories are poorly paced and lack a clear driving narrative, but I don't even know where to start on fixing that!" Having found more hard and fast rules on the subject to learn from, I'd definitely say it's easier now. I can sit down, plan out what my writing needs to achieve and write it with a bit of confidence that at least some people will want to read it, and I've done writing in a professional context etc.

[LunarScyphozoa]

laughs in I am the young version

[MeltingCORE]

Writing is easier for me now! I have binders full of stories I made as a kid and teen but many of them were never finished. It was easy for me to come up with ideas but less easy to execute them. I'm also an artist so I was honing both skills simultaneously. I'm 26 and have far more experience that allows me to keep going forth. My current series "Red Shift" is the first work I've made that's this lengthy. Before this, I finished a few other shorter stories + one comic. (Mega-Egypt, Signal in the Atmosphere, MeltingCORE, and Crystal) But this is the first time everything has clicked in place so easily. I think it's because my previous works were building blocks in modeling characters, world design, storytelling, etc.

Also can I just say that as a teen, I definitely used to be one of those writers who thought using fancy smancy words made my writing "poetic"? I've learned that flowing language comes from your heart and experiences. Not plucking words from a dictionary online. And it's good to balance your writing with normal language. One of my professors said something about her own classmates when she was in grad school that always stuck with me: "Intelligent writing is not using ridiculous language that no one can understand outside a small group of people. Intelligent writing is the ability to reach the general public."

[NinaWrites]

It was easier to write when I was a kid because I had so. Much. Time.

As an adult, I have all of these responsibility where it's hard to find a moment to sit and write haha.

But it was also easier to write when I was younger because I didn't think half as much as I do now. Ofc, all of my characters were very 2 dimensional due to that.