Experiences RPing + procrastination

[Shawdios]

Have you ever had an RP you are really excited for and love, but couldn’t seem to get yourself to write for it or get yourself to sit down to write for it?

Feel free to share any experience of procrastinating an RP reply!

 

[Daisie]

Aha!
I usually find myself procrastinating a RP reply when one little red flag happens: upon reading my partner's post, I don't immediately know what my response is going to look like. It's not a red flag about the RP itself, nor the writing partner, but to me it's a helpful little flag that SOMETHING is off in the RP. Whether we've written ourselves into a corner, something unexpected has halted previous plans, my character doesn't have enough direct interaction to respond to... it could be a variety of things, but it's usually something.

Procrastination, then, usually turns chronic until a) I finally figure out something clever/fitting to do. An "in", if you will.
b) I talk to my partner about my issue, and we work out a way around it, even if it calls for an edit or double-post.
Or the worst option, c) I keep pressing on, sacrificing my motivation in the name of forward momentum. This generally never fixes the root issue and really kills hype.

Once in a while I'll intentionally delay writing a post because the circumstances are complex enough that I genuinely need time to consider how my character would react. And sometimes I'll delay a post because it's a scene-starter or a location with tons of detail involved, and I'm too busy or too tired to sit down for it. Though I don't consider either of those procrastinating.

If I'm procrastinating regular old posts, I take that as a sign that something needs to be worked out. I understand that all RPs have their lull points, but I think it's a valuable skill to gauge exactly when those begin, and consider timeskipping to get past them, writing in some exposition after the fact.

And it doesn't even have to be a lull point that's the issue. It doesn't matter how exciting or unexciting the events in-character are.
Just this past week I was RPing a fight scene LOADED with feelings of betrayal and panic, when I realized I was procrastinating my posts. Upon further inspection, I realized that the intended outcome of the fight (planned from the beginning) was someone kicking someone else out of their house, but because of the way the first post in the scene was done, I couldn't find a reasonable motive for him to do that. It just didn't feel realistic to me, so it really sapped the direction from my posts. My writing started repeating itself and wandering a bit, it was just all-around unpleasant.
So I stopped, talked about the issues I was facing with posting and why, and we both decided to redo the _whole_ scene. It was a bit tedious, but also the second version flowed much better than the first, and had flair to it that was much more entertaining to RP. A lot better than being stuck, that is.

I'm really starting to learn that if I start not wanting to write for an RP, some communication is REALLY in order. Something's either boring me or bugging me, and I would rather enjoy writing than just doing it to move the story along. There are better ways of pulling that off!

 

[Arcanist]

A lot of my procrastination for roleplays comes from a place of perfectionism - I'll nit pick at my posts before they're even written, and I'm in a constant state of comparing myself to whoever it is I'm writing with! It's something I've been trying to unlearn, but it does bleed into RP responses. A lot of the time I just force myself through it, communicate with partners, and just get up to general fun OOC stuff surrounding what we're writing to get some inspiration.

Love my roleplays, but my brain just has a way of putting that roadblock up for me. Very grateful to have people who are very laid back and give me the space, while also staying motivated and excited for the roleplays too!

 

[ThreeFive]

Like Arcanist above me, perfectionism and self-doubt are the main factors that contribute to my procrastination as well. This is true not just for roleplaying, but everything. For well over a decade, I have not roleplayed at all and have done very little creative writing simply because I doubt myself and have a very strong inner critic. I often think, I should not even try because it will never be good enough and I will just waste my time. My stories and characters are silly or cringe-worthy and I don't want to embarrass myself.

The main reason I joined this site was to ease back into roleplaying and to prove to myself that I don't have to be perfect and my writing and creativity are enough. They always had been and always will be. My characters have really helped me on my own journey, so I shouldn't be ashamed of them. Roleplaying is just meant to be fun, and I am no longer going to allow my inner critic to take away things that used to bring me such joy.

 

[.quietus]

I only struggled with that when I had mental health issues. I used to have pretty bad anxiety, so I would get caught up in thinking my posts were not good enough and that I had to try harder to keep my partners' interests alive. Nowadays, though? Nah. When I don't want to write a post, there's good chance that there's either a problem with the scene, or I'm not actually enjoying the roleplay at all and should drop it. Sometimes, I'm too tired to write but that's obviously not the same.

 

[GrumpySwallow]

My problem is that I usually have an idea of what I want to write, but it's all scrambled in my head, and I have to unravel that mess into a coherent narrative. With working full time, going back to school, and going to the gym and martial arts classes, I'm not always able to have a time where I can just focus on the RP ideas in my head. What I find helps is to type a sentence. It kind of acts like an anchor for me. Even if I only make that sentence, leave it alone for a while, come back to it, and completely change it, at least I have that starting point. I don't know if that makes much sense, but it works for me.

 

[Perpetual Zen]

Absolutely! 99.9 percent of the time the reasons behind the procrastination have nothing to do with the people I'm role playing with. I always feel guilty and really hope others understand this. I just naturally work at a turtles pace, I will always get to the destination, I'm committed to getting there but I'm not going to break out into a sprint. Also I'm not super persistent with the people I write with. I'm just a naturally methodical person and it takes me time to mend thoughts together into a story.

I'm prone to seasonal depression and sometimes that slows me down some seasons. Like, I'm on slow motion but I'm not particularly unhappy? So I mean procrastination is really common.

I'm really interested to see how others respond to this and I think there might be a pattern that it has nothing to do with laziness but a mixture of varying motivations during specific periods of peoples lives

Good luck everyone! You'll get there!

 

[Idea]

One case is when I simply lack the continuous time. While I do plan out my posts (and even beyond), and having that base plan is really important towards my writing, I also find I write a lot better and easier if I can do it all in one fell swoop, one continuous train of thought. It's not easier just in the "things flow better" sense, but it's also just harder to me to self-justify putting in the time to write into a post when I know or suspect I won't have enough time to finish. After all, if I don't have enough time anyway, might as well do something which I do have time to finish, no (like posting on the discussion forums)? Plus if I start the post and then for whatever reason my computer reboots I might lose all of it. All too often all I get 10 minutes, 20 minutes, maybe half an hour of guaranteed time. But I don't find myself with the couple hours I need to write the kind of posts I want to write. This is why I so often end up delivering posts at 3-4 am, as deep into the night is not only the time my brain seems to be most active (for better and for worse), but also is just about the only time I can guarantee no interruptions, and many roleplays of mine have died to me going on vacation and being unable to use the limited time I had because I couldn't get into it if I only had a few minutes.

Another thing which actively pushes me to do stuff besides posting is the way I handle my priorities. There's a lot of things I have and like to do, and thus that requires me setting priorities. One of the criteria here is need and opportunity, or put in other ways, if there's something less urgent to do that tends to be lower priority than something I will miss out on if I do go for it. So a temporary event from a game might sometimes pull more of my time during that period.

One relatively more common thing though is less 'procrastinating' per se, and more trying and failing to start writing. One cause of this is the stress from having too many things to do. Unlike before I'm not talking about hobbies, but specifically things I feel are obligations. When there's a lot of projects, and replies I owe and other such stuff - like when I return from a vacation - and this really accumulated, I tend to get 'freezes' where even though I may know what I want to write I just can't get myself to as my mind is getting constantly bombarded by all the thoughts and pressure of other stuff I also need to do and also should be doing.

Another case is when I have a particular idea I really love, but for whatever reason I don't immediately input it and then end up forgetting. When that happens I really end up struggling to just abandon it, and will end up searching, trying to remember and I can't I end up annoyed at myself for failing to include that bit.

The last one may be a little obvious... when I'm sick. Being sick can cause constant interruptions, and more importantly headaches that make it super hard to focus.

 

[Perpetual Zen]

One way I combat procrastination when it comes to role playing is I give myself a system.
So like I'll write out the idea's, sometimes it's just a list of words, then I move into a bulletin of scene idea's. I go easy on myself. Sure, the idea comes really slow but eventually it comes. Then I'll work two hundred words there and step away for a little bit do stuff and come back revise and write another two hundred pretty easily. Eventually I'll have a pretty okay put together piece of work. It might take a bit longer but it comes. With the system I make like a Notion page or something similar so I can reference my inspirations. Visuals are important. Again it sort of helps you feel like your doing something towards your goal. Even though its not actively writing several posts its getting there.

Idunnojusthelpsmeout

Hope everyone's working through their procrastination challenges okay today!

 

[Arcanist]

Me and my partner are trying a 'deadline' system at the minute XD we've been roleplaying for years, so we know each other's tendencies well, and I've tried with one deadline so far, so I'll report back and see how it goes XD

One way I combat procrastination when it comes to role playing is I give myself a system.
So like I'll write out the idea's, sometimes it's just a list of words, then I move into a bulletin of scene idea's. I go easy on myself. Sure, the idea comes really slow but eventually it comes. Then I'll work two hundred words there and step away for a little bit do stuff and come back revise and write another two hundred pretty easily. Eventually I'll have a pretty okay put together piece of work. It might take a bit longer but it comes. With the system I make like a Notion page or something similar so I can reference my inspirations. Visuals are important. Again it sort of helps you feel like your doing something towards your goal. Even though its not actively writing several posts its getting there.

Idunnojusthelpsmeout

Hope everyone's working through their procrastination challenges okay today!

Notion is so lovely but I get frustrated that it doesn't look like the most aesthetic thing you've ever seen ^^;