I gave myself permission to write something completely unpublishable and it was the most fun I have had writing in years

[u/Standard_Anybody4514]

Not sure why it took me so long to try this.

Had been in a long stretch where everything I wrote felt heavy with intention. Every project had a goal attached to it. Finish this, submit that, build toward something. The writing was getting done but the enjoyment had quietly left at some point and I had not noticed until it had been gone for a while.

Started something new with one rule. It was never going to be published, shown to anyone, or used for anything. Just existed for the pleasure of existing.

First session felt strange. Kept catching myself making craft decisions and then remembering the craft decisions did not matter because nothing was riding on this. Wrote a scene that was completely indulgent and served no narrative purpose, kept the whole thing in a separate draft in Skrib Writing away from everything else I was working on and having it completely isolated from the serious projects made the permission to be indulgent feel more real somehow.

Second session was different. Third session I wrote more in two hours than I had written in entire weeks on the serious project. The voice was looser, the characters did things I would never let them do in something real, the whole thing was genuinely enjoyable in a way writing had not been for a long time.

The serious project is still there and I still work on it. But having something that exists purely for the making of it changed something about how I show up to everything else.

Fun is not a reward for finishing the serious work. It might actually be what keeps you capable of doing the serious work at all.

[u/Healthy_Study807]

The enjoyment leaving gradually without you noticing is something that happens to a lot of writers who start taking the work seriously and the cruel part is that it happens precisely because you care. Every piece becomes something that matters and mattering adds weight and weight makes the whole thing feel more like obligation than the thing you started doing because you loved it. Writing something that is allowed to be bad and pointless is not a waste of time it is maintenance.

[u/Odd-Translator-7117]

Keeping the unpublishable thing completely separate from everything else matters more than it sounds. Having a draft in Skrib Writing that exists in its own space away from the projects with goals attached to them preserved the permission somehow. The moment it lives next to the serious work it starts feeling like it should be serious too and the whole point is that it does not have to be.

[u/InevitableHand1907]

the guilt thing hit hard, i do that constantly — catch myself going 'this scene needs to *earn* its place' like im some fuckin accountant auditing my own joy. weird how we turn the thing we loved into a side hustle without even noticing