I need help writing and don't know where to go

[LordWolfKnight]

Like the Title suggests, i need help with writing. writing what exactly, a campaign setting. the problem i have is that my brain goes so much faster than my hands can write or type. suggestions that people have given me practice typing, working with someone who can type faster than you can speak and take classes on writing. first let me point out a few problems i have with these things.


first I have a brain injury, and it doesn't function very well logically
second i don't have money i can put into this right now as i don't even have a rough draft to approach my wife with it
i lack the ability to give details as they come from me talking about it not from some sort of plan


is there any sort of resource that you playgrounders can think of that might help me become a better writer that i can use for free until i become good enough to put money into later?

[sneakykitten]

I did a search and found this guide to starting RPG campaigns: How to Start an RPG Campaign. (https://homework.never-ends.net/rpgcampaign/)

[Algeh]

Would speech-to-text software help you? Some of my students use it for various reasons, and if you can speak faster than you can type it may be helpful for you. (You will probably have to go back and do a "cleanup" pass on whatever it captured, generally, but it's a lot better than it used to be.) The three speech-to-text Chrome extensions we usually point students to are:


Voice Recognition (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/voice-recognition/ikjmfindklfaonkodbnidahohdfbdhkn)
SpeechPad (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/voice-to-text-notebook/pjineiicgkijhommbbkldannmfmglbmf)
VoiceNote (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/voicenote-ii-speech-to-te/hfknjgplnkgjihghcidajejfmldhibfm)


Note that I haven't used any of these (I'm a fast typist and would find speech-to-text really frustrating in comparison), I just copied and pasted from our school's accessibility suggestions page.

[~Corvus~]

SpeechPad can be a neat trick, but it's not as good as it may seem (you need to be very clear and precise with your language, and you'll need to adjust some words (Incarnum for example), but it's doable. However, this might not help you long term. So I offer you a suggestion as a person who can understand and relate to logical-processing difficulties and such.

I come from ADHD childhood + borderline Autism spectrum myself, so I can understand the cognitive disconnect some people can have between what they want to say and their own thoughts. After a long and colorful life (I'm 30 now oh gawd), I currently have a part-time job in transcription. It's helped me both type faster and also recognize or summarize what people are saying, especially since most people talk much faster than your below-average typist (me). Although I'm still struggling with it, I've noticed an incredible improvement in my ability to both type accurately and well when I hear what people have to say. Therefore...

1) Record yourself. You can use your phone, tablet, laptop, whatever, they should all be able to do this by now.

2) Listen to what your recordings and transcribe your recordings into writing.

This might sound like a weird suggestion, but for me, I've never had a better time understanding both my own thoughts and others than parsing them from spoken word into writing. Here's what's going to happen:

1) You'll hear yourself and what you're saying, and you're going to have to repeat and repeat your recordings until your transcription is done.

2) By the time you've written down your spoken draft, you'll have reviewed the material enough to understand or have some ideas about what you like and what you don't.

3) You'll have an easier time editing what you've coming up with.

4) As you continue this process, your brain is going to adapt and re-adjust itself to learn how to compensate and (re?)grow into logical proficiency.

In the past 4 years I've had this job, I've transformed from a marginally-functional person into a dude who has enough income to live alone, eat what he wants (real food), and even go to the gym. I also find that I can more often than not I understand what people mean when they say it, which is huge for a person who was raised to believe this would never happen (he's smart but he'll always have problems). So you can get it back, man!

5) Most importantly, rest well and be gentle with yourself. Self-compassion FTW.
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TL;DR: Record yourself talking, then transcribe what you've recorded yourself. Over time this will become easier. Also, get plenty of sleep and love yourself.