10 WAYS TO INCREASE YOUR OUTPUT

I write a lot. I try to write every day, which doesn’t always work out, but it does most days! As such, people often ask me how I do it. People often stop me in the street and ask, “Hysteria, how do you do it? We know you work part-time while studying in a field that is widely considered one of the most demanding in your country, and yet we see you banging out pieces several times a month! And they’re all so good!” they cry. “All of your words fuck severely! How do you make them come out?”

And to those people I always say, “I don’t make the words do anything! They want to come out all on their own. These words, they are inside me, and I am merely the vessel, and I turn on the faucet, and there they go. Why, keeping them in would be more difficult than letting them out!”

This, of course, is incorrect. It is a lie I tell them so they will leave me alone. The more time I waste explaining my process to these people, the less time I have for writing. Instead, I follow a short, comprehensive set of rules that I have decided, in my mercy, to share with you all today.

ONE. ACCEPT THAT YOU WILL FAIL YOUR CLASSES

It’s okay. It’s okay. You’ve got time. You want to write now, and if the words want out, you should let them out. Fail your classes. Who cares? You can take them again next semester. Right? If you can’t, god help you. You probably can, though. It’s all going to be fine. If the mood strikes, you need to write, that’s the rule with art. It’s always good when art has rules. Your muse just kissed you, dude, you can’t be studying. You’re going to fail your classes, but it’s going to be worth it. When you’re old and dying, what do you think you’ll regret more? Not getting your degree, or not writing that thing? Got you there, didn’t I?

2) ACCEPT THAT YOU WILL LOSE YOUR JOB

I know that’s hard. I know you think I’m joking. But seriously, it’s okay. If your job can’t deal with you spending every waking minute writing, it’s not the right job for you. And if you just keep writing enough, if you just keep publishing and uploading and promoting your work, you won’t even need a job! So whatever, if they fire you now, they’ll see your name in the papers soon. As one of the authors, I mean. Not because you did anything ill-advised. You don’t need that job! You don’t need them! You don’t need anybody. You just need a piece of paper and a pen. What are you, a capitalist? No job can be more important than your art! It’s your art, man! Why are you caring about anything else? Traitor.

FOCUS ON YOUR JOB

Hey. Don’t get fired. Come on, man. It’s gonna be okay, you can figure out a personal schedule or something. Set aside a time in your day for writing, and get your writing done then, so you can have the rest of your day to focus on your job. If you’re too stressed out about making rent, you’re not going to be writing, or at least you won’t be writing well. In fact, maybe just… wait. Maybe just wait a bit. Until you’re financially stable, you know? Maybe just don’t do anything until you feel financially stable. Just focus. You need to just focus on that job. Keep focusing. You’ll remember what art is later. Later, you know? When you have money. You can write when you have money.

FOCUS ON YOUR CLASSES

Just… Just stay in school. Just stay. Just stay in school. We’ll figure the rest out.

STOP TALKING TO YOUR FRIENDS

IF THEY LOVED YOU, THEY’D UNDERSTAND.

STOP TALKING TO YOUR FAMILY

IT’S FOR ART!!!

STOP GOING OUTSIDE

What are you doing outside? Walking? Are you taking walks? Are you enjoying your little walks? Go back inside. You could be writing right now. You should be ashamed of yourself.

GO OUTSIDE EVERY DAY

Make it twenty minutes. Hell, make it ten. You have time for ten minutes, right? Go outside every day for ten minutes. Look around you, breathe in, breathe out. Maybe take a few pictures! When you’re back inside, try to describe the scenery you saw. Try to write about the people you saw, try to make up little lives and character traits for them. It is so important to interact with your outside world. Inspiration doesn’t come from within you, it comes from outside. Keep wandering around until you’re inspired. Any second now. You’re going to be so inspired. Don’t go back inside until you’re inspired. I hope you’re dressed warmly enough. If not, you can write about hypothermia! That’s inspiration right there.

Or just stand on your balcony for one minute each day. That’s outside. That’s gotta help in some way.

WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN

QUICK!! Don’t let anything go to waste. Nothing!! Not a single word. Write down every stupid idea you have. Yes, I mean that! Write down the stupid ones! Write down the good ones too, obviously. But it is so important that you write down everything. So you can use it later when you need an idea. You need to write as much as you can, every day, so it makes sense that sooner or later you’ll run out of ideas. Well, not with this neat trick! If you just keep writing down every idiotic thought that comes to you, whenever you get stuck, you can simply grab one of those dumb ideas you had and write about that. Remember that! The point of writing down every idea you have is so you can use every idea you have when the time comes. Foolproof.

WRITE NOTHING DOWN

What for? What for? What are you writing anything down for? If it’s good, you’ll remember. If it’s good, it’ll come back to you. All those people making haha funny posts about how You Know You’re A Writer when you have several different journals for different moods or whatever? Posers. Losers. Pathetic. If it’s a good idea, you don’t need to write it down. If you forget it and it never comes back to you, then it wasn’t good. If you forget all of your ideas, that means they were all bad. Writing them down wouldn’t have made them any better. You just have bad ideas.

KEEP YOUR SPACE CLEAN

This is an easy one. I know nobody wants to hear it, but we all know it. You can’t focus if you live in a dumpster. Clean up your space, then you can write. Clean it up first. Clean it up before you ever sit down to write. You won’t write a single word unless your space is clean. Make a list of all the things you need to clean before you can write. The desk at the very least, you should probably sweep the floors too. Do they need to be mopped? Mop the floors. Get the kitchen clean, so you know you can get a healthy snack once you’re done writing. You should clean the bathroom, too. Check the internet to see if there’s any cheap furniture available to help you organize your shoes. What were we doing?

CHAOS

Whatever actually nobody needs order and all those super organized “artists” are lying to themselves and to you art is fundamentally chaotic art shouldn’t have any rules and if you hold onto any rules for your art you are a poser look at this lol it doesnt even have any punctuation anymore and i just left out the apostrophe in doesnt AND i didnt capitalize my i WOOOO CHECK THIS OUT you should live in chaos. You should live in chaos. Are you an artist or a CEO? You need chaos. depression even. your apartment needs to look bad, or else everything you write is shallow and unrelatable

MONETIZE NOTHING

Nothing will suck the soul out of an artist as quickly as monetization. You don’t want to write for money. Believe me. Writing for money is never the answer. You write for yourself. Sometimes, maybe, you’ll write for your readers, but mostly you write for yourself. You should write for yourself. And writing for yourself means never getting anything in return. And it means never asking for anything in return. Art should be free, and that means artists shouldn’t be paid. Wait. What? No, that’s… I guess that makes sense. You should never ask for money for your art, because that would mean you are making people pay for your art, and that’s not right. I think. Well, but if you start writing for money, then you’ll have to start writing what the paying audience wants to read, and that’s going to be bad. So just don’t do it. Don’t ever do it. We cannot become sellouts. We need to be depressed and poor or our art will suck. It’s unfortunate, but it’s the truth!

MONETIZE EVERYTHING

Sorry, that was bullshit. I’ve changed my mind. You should be paid for your art. I should be paid for my art. It’s so important to feed artists while they’re alive. Monetize your writing! Monetize everything you ever write. Set up a Patreon. Only upload new chapters of your gay fanfiction to AO3 if you’ve reached a certain number of subscribers on Patreon. That’s gonna get people paying for sure. Never do anything without monetary incentive anymore. If your writing was good enough, people would be throwing money at you left and right! And your writing is good. Your writing is fucking fantastic, and people should be throwing money at you. Art is well and good, but you’ve gotta make a living here. If you can’t, then it’s not worth it. The point of art is to make money. Never do anything for free.

WRITE ABOUT WHAT YOU LOVE

I mean, it’s the least you can do. Especially if you’re going to write for money. It’s the only way not to hate yourself, or your art. Write about what you love. Pick topics you like, make characters you like. Write about things that are important to you. Don’t ever write about something you don’t care deeply for. If you don’t personally like a character, throw them out of the narrative. Don’t even kill them. Just retcon them out. I’m talking about passion here, you need passion. If you aren’t one hundred percent on board with every little detail in your writing, don’t even bother. You’re gonna hate it, everyone’s gonna hate it, and you won’t be true to yourself. Write about the same thing every time. You still love it, right? Then keep writing about it. That way, writing will be easy, and the words will flow out, just like they do for me. If you ever have to think about your stance on something you might write about, it’s not even worth the effort.

STOP CARING SO MUCH ABOUT YOUR WRITING

you could just stop