Does anybody else get bored of conworlds easily?

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Rheddie
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Does anybody else get bored of conworlds easily?

Post by Rheddie »

Is it just me or does anybody else find it hard to focus on one world for two long?? I seem to have had loads of worlds over the years but I always get fed up after a while and move on to something else. Sometimes after a few years, sometimes after just a few weeks or even days. Is this normal?

It's like each world I make has a particular aesthetic which I'm into at the time but after a while I get bored of it. I want to try something new. Like the world Torn which I was working on is all about chaos and disorder but then what happens when I'm no longer in a choatic or disrordered sort of mood? Or I had one world which was about flying vampires but then I got fed up of that sort of thing.

Or sometimes I end up finding more about history or language or whateve and a world just starts to seem unrealistic and I can't cope with any more. (Obviously this is only a problem in worlds that are meant to be realistic.)

I've seen some people who have such lovely and detailed worlds and mine never get like that because I can't focus on them for long enough.
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elemtilas
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Re: Does anybody else get bored of conworlds easily?

Post by elemtilas »

Rheddie wrote:Is it just me or does anybody else find it hard to focus on one world for two long?? I seem to have had loads of worlds over the years but I always get fed up after a while and move on to something else. Sometimes after a few years, sometimes after just a few weeks or even days. Is this normal?
There is indeed a spectrum. The way you describe yourself is what I've called "serial monogamy" --- a long string of worlds that you work on for some time each before moving on to the next. Others are "monogamous with fringe benefits" --- one main world, but will sometimes take on a subordinate partner. Others still are straight up "polygamorous" or "strict monogamous". I'm a "love at first sight strict monogamous". I never had any projects of my own before or since The World.
It's like each world I make has a particular aesthetic which I'm into at the time but after a while I get bored of it. I want to try something new. Like the world Torn which I was working on is all about chaos and disorder but then what happens when I'm no longer in a choatic or disrordered sort of mood? Or I had one world which was about flying vampires but then I got fed up of that sort of thing.
Heh. Me I don't even know what it is to be "bored" with The World! I think you're probably more normal in this regard than me.
Or sometimes I end up finding more about history or language or whatever and a world just starts to seem unrealistic and I can't cope with any more. (Obviously this is only a problem in worlds that are meant to be realistic.)

I've seen some people who have such lovely and detailed worlds and mine never get like that because I can't focus on them for long enough.
Well, it does take a long time to get all that depth and breadth of detail. There's no one right way of doing things, and each of us has to discover for herself what's the best way to go. I consider myself blessed with the gift I've been given; but maybe for you, you need to go a different way?

I can only offer a suggestion, and that is to keep your work on all these worlds someplace. Like in discrete folders or wikis or whatever. So, when you get tired of chaos and disorder, perhaps you'll find yourself drawn back to flying vampires! Then, just go back into that folder and continue where you left off!
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Re: Does anybody else get bored of conworlds easily?

Post by Davush »

I feel like this especially with languages. It seems that I can't stick to developing just one to a decent level. My conworld has changed many, many times and probably will continue to do so, but I see it as kind of a 'home' for everything that I want to put it in it. I have thought about restarting or making others, but I don't have the patience to start over...! [:D]
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Re: Does anybody else get bored of conworlds easily?

Post by alynnidalar »

To be frank, I've often thought of myself for being weird for doing the reverse--I flirt with other conworlds on occasion, but I always come home to my dalar conworld! In fact, it's difficult for me to put any effort into other conworlds at all. (I'm thinking about forcing myself to NOT write another dalar story for NaNoWriMo this year, in fact, simply because I want to branch out more)

But I can assure you that I've encountered lots of people who, like you, never stick with one setting too long. It's perfectly normal and healthy! It's like the difference between an author who writes one very big novel series all set in the same world, and the author who writes the same amount of books, but they're all standalones in totally different settings. One isn't "right" while the other is "wrong"; they're both perfectly normal and valid ways of doing it.

Like elemtilas suggests, I would definitely suggest that you hang onto your materials for each conworld. Even if you don't go back to them entirely, you might still find yourself incorporating bits and pieces of them into a different conworld and be glad you kept them.

Another bit of advice that I frequently have to remind myself of... give yourself permission to be wrong! Give yourself permission to try things out, realize they don't work, and redo them. Basically nobody gets things perfect the first time around. Building a world can be a lengthy process of trial and error, and that's OK. Sometimes you might get frustrated and switch projects for awhile, and when you come back, you'll have a whole new perspective about something new to try. And that's fine!
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eldin raigmore
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Re: Does anybody else get bored of conworlds easily?

Post by eldin raigmore »

Rheddie wrote:Is it just me or ....
I stick to the same conworld; but my problem is that I get ideas I want to include that might not be compatible with ideas I've already included.
Clearly if I were more ruthlessly decisive I would be making faster progress.
Since I'm imagining an entire galaxy and maybe 4.5 * (10^9) years of stuff happening, I can sometimes put some ideas earlier or later or on another planet or around another star.
But sometimes it's not that easy. (Or maybe it would be that easy if I just thought of something that would occur to someone else but hasn't yet occurred to me.)

OTOH I get really enthusiastic every now and then about someone else's conworld. I like following at least around a handful of the current CBBers' conworlds. There're probably a good few dozen that I've followed since, say, February 2006. And that's not including the conworlds of successful, published authors and media-creators, such as Kage Baker and George R.R. Martin and ...

The ones I've stopped following, I didn't stop because I got bored; I stopped because the author(s?) stopped. In some cases (for instance Terry Pratchett and Kage Baker) they died. (Most people's output seems to decline following death.) Sir Terry had a long and happy life; he was still producing even after he found out what was going to happen. Ms. Baker, OTOH, died very young from my PoV.
But I still find myself imagining myself in their worlds.
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elemtilas
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Re: Does anybody else get bored of conworlds easily?

Post by elemtilas »

eldin raigmore wrote:The ones I've stopped following, I didn't stop because I got bored; I stopped because the author(s?) stopped. In some cases (for instance Terry Pratchett and Kage Baker) they died. (Most people's output seems to decline following death.) Sir Terry had a long and happy life; he was still producing even after he found out what was going to happen.
On the other hand, Tolkien (JRR) just keeps going and going...
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Re: Does anybody else get bored of conworlds easily?

Post by Lambuzhao »

Of course. You work on them. SOmething frustrates or blocks you. You leave. Stuff happens. You come back. Rinse & repeat. Mind you, how long each step happens is almost never the same duration twice.
[;)]
elemtilas wrote:Others are "monogamous with fringe benefits" --- one main world, but will sometimes take on a subordinate partner. Others still are straight up "polygamorous" or "strict monogamous". I'm a "love at first sight strict monogamous". I never had any projects of my own before or since The World.
I am pretty much in this vein with my principal :con: Tirga. Early on (prolly thanks to way too much David Attenborough, and a host of other PBS docus and specials), learned that our world/a world/any world is A FYDGING BIG PLACE!
Soooo many different/clashing/incompatible/well night next to impossible things can co-occur under the same heaven. I sort of liked the ideas of George Lucas of a primarily desert world, primarily forest worlds, primarily ice world, and (later realized in the prequels, but tantalizingly hinted at in McQuarrie artwork) a water-world. It's not that this didn't find appeal with me; it just seemed way too "one trick pony" to me.
I think I was more enamoured and consequently influenced by the beauteous variety of a single world like Thra from The Dark Crystal, or Middle Earth, or Narnia.

I have had ideas for other worlds or world ideas, and usually they got explored qua other worlds in either my Space Station Romanova or The Years Ahead projects. I usually tried to ground them in moons and planets within or much like what we were discovering via Voyager 2.


But if a concept had some rather firm connectability to somewhere on Tirga, I would find it a home on Tirga. That just further enriched Tirga's milieu overall.

I suppose that makes me chronic tetragamous with 'outer fringes' benefits.
[;)]
alynnidalar wrote:I would definitely suggest that you hang onto your materials for each conworld. Even if you don't go back to them entirely, you might still find yourself incorporating bits and pieces of them into a different conworld and be glad you kept them.
[tick] Oh my Glob! How not‽ How Not‽ How Not‽ How Not‽
As an unabashèd :con: hoarder, that has to be part of my personal credo.
alynnidalar wrote:but I always come home to my dalar conworld!

Borta bra men hemma bäst!
Away is fine; home is best!

[;)]
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Re: Does anybody else get bored of conworlds easily?

Post by Lambuzhao »

When I read ur thread title, I immediately thought of this tune.
A cautionary tale, of sorts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_v7iDmegxQ

Enjoy!
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Re: Does anybody else get bored of conworlds easily?

Post by AlwaysForget »

Maybe not bored, but frustrated. I tend to be a perfectionist, so it tends to hamper my progress. Same with my conlanging, causing all of my character's names to be mainly placeholders. It's very frustrating and I get little done
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eldin raigmore
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Re: Does anybody else get bored of conworlds easily?

Post by eldin raigmore »

AlwaysForget wrote:Maybe not bored, but frustrated. I tend to be a perfectionist, so it tends to hamper my progress. Same with my conlanging, causing all of my character's names to be mainly placeholders. It's very frustrating and I get little done
I get bored with being frustrated by my hampered progress.
Like, for instance, do I mean a picnic-basket, or a laundry-basket, when I say "hamper"?
And is it related, at all, to "hampster"? And why isn't the /p/ sound in "hamster" written?
And should my conworld even have such questions be relevant to it?
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Re: Does anybody else get bored of conworlds easily?

Post by Khemehekis »

Are you a scrapper with conworlds?
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Re: Does anybody else get bored of conworlds easily?

Post by Rheddie »

I can only offer a suggestion, and that is to keep your work on all these worlds someplace. Like in discrete folders or wikis or whatever. So, when you get tired of chaos and disorder, perhaps you'll find yourself drawn back to flying vampires! Then, just go back into that folder and continue where you left off!
I definitely do keep thihgs! Though rarely go back to anything.
Another bit of advice that I frequently have to remind myself of... give yourself permission to be wrong! Give yourself permission to try things out, realize they don't work, and redo them. Basically nobody gets things perfect the first time around. Building a world can be a lengthy process of trial and error, and that's OK. Sometimes you might get frustrated and switch projects for awhile, and when you come back, you'll have a whole new perspective about something new to try. And that's fine!
Yea, I do rework things sometimes. Although sometimes there's so much I want to change and it just seems so much work.
Are you a scrapper with conworlds?
Haha, maybe not quite that extreme, but definitely more of a "scrapper" than a "loyalist" or a "filler"!!
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Re: Does anybody else get bored of conworlds easily?

Post by LinguoFranco »

I have a several conworlds. Well, they're more like ideas for one. I always get stumped due to the originality concern and the claim that the pseudo-medieval European setting is way overused, so I try to avoid anything resembling that time and place.

I also feel a little too limited as I cannot create an East Asian inspired conworld without copying and pasting the IRL counterparts under different names and maybe magic and a few creatures, in order to avoid potentially generalizing East Asia and unintentionally implying that Chinese and Japanese are the same. The Last Airbender somehow got by just fine by mixing different Asian cultures together. The Fire Nation is supposed to be Imperial Japan, but I've read that the attack of the Air Nomads is supposed to parallel the Chinese invasion of Tibet, and Fire Nation architecture is said to have Thai influences.

I don't mind borrowing from real life, and basing aspects of the world upon real cultures, but I want some room for creative freedom.
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Re: Does anybody else get bored of conworlds easily?

Post by eldin raigmore »

LinguoFranco wrote: .... (problems) ....
(Not that I'm a great example of this advice, but):

Fuck all of those problems.
While creating, disengage your internal censor, internal critic, and internal editor.
Get something out there that you sort-of like.
If it needs tweaking to get around those problems, tweak it after it's out of your head and onto your screen/tablet/page/whatever.
If you still think it might run into one of those problems, and you can't think of how to tweak it around them, ask someone else -- for instance, some of us -- whether that's a for-real problem, and if so, for help getting around it.
Odds are a lot of what you're afraid of won't appear to be actually involved to an objective observer.*
The rest is probably fixable; and you can probably do most of it yourself.


*(Actually, we might be more objective than your mom, but probably much more pro-LinguoFranco than the average man-in-the-street.)
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Re: Does anybody else get bored of conworlds easily?

Post by LinguoFranco »

Thanks. I decided to build a world, any world, I don't even care if it is the traditional pseudo-medieval setting or just a copy of some IRL culture. I used to be really good at worldbuilding, but something just happened and it's been a struggle ever since. I've come to the realization that originality is not everything or the most important thing as some of my favorite stories and series have settings and premises that have been used before and done to death, but it's the characters and their interactions that got me into them into the first place.
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eldin raigmore
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Re: Does anybody else get bored of conworlds easily?

Post by eldin raigmore »

LinguoFranco wrote: .... I decided to build a world, any world, I don't even care if it is the traditional pseudo-medieval setting or just a copy of some IRL culture. ....
Good for you! And "hurrah" for you too!

LinguoFranco wrote: .... I've come to the realization that originality is not everything or the most important thing as some of my favorite stories and series have settings and premises that have been used before and done to death, but it's the characters and their interactions that got me into them into the first place.
I think that's true of most of us.

[hr][/hr]
[hr][/hr]


I look forward to the results!
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Re: Does anybody else get bored of conworlds easily?

Post by Noshi187 »

I create lots of ideas for conworlds, and try to put them together into something cohesive when all I have for one is, say, a calendar system, but it rarely works. I've gotta do something with that calendar, though...
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Re: Does anybody else get bored of conworlds easily?

Post by LinguistCat »

I'm redoing a conlang right now because simultaneously it's gotten a bit unruly for the use I was going to put it to and I didn't have a clear idea what I wanted to do with it as a language. It's in connection with a "conculture", although the culture itself is based on cat youkai in Japan. And the language is a fictional relative of Japanese. Still, I've been stalling on both, not due so much to boredom but not knowing what to do next. Though I suppose if every time you look at something it just makes you feel exhausted, dropping it would be as likely as with boredom.

I have a few other conworlds that are proper conworlds, but they've been on the back burners a lot lately.
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Re: Does anybody else get bored of conworlds easily?

Post by gestaltist »

Yes! I get bored or dissatisfied way too easily. I often get discouraged to the point of not doing any creative work for months but I always come back to the "secret vice".
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Re: Does anybody else get bored of conworlds easily?

Post by elemtilas »

gestaltist wrote:Yes! I get bored or dissatisfied way too easily. I often get discouraged to the point of not doing any creative work for months but I always come back to the "secret vice".
Good to see you back from your long wanderings, gestaltist!
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