I tend to skip descriptive imagery, and prefer books that give more play to ideas.

I've also written two novels (self-published sci-fi) and one of the "benefits" of self-publishing was that I got to make the commercially stupid (but it's not like self-published niche sci fi would ever sell all that much; if I was writing for the money I'd write something more commercial and submit it to a trad publisher) decision of ignoring my editor when she made "suggestions" about the amount of exposition.

She was right to raise it. There's "too much". I know there is, and it's there because I that is what I love reading. But I suspect that is in large part exactly because without seeing images when I read less abstract parts of the books, I'm not used to the world building etc. taking "time away" from the visuals because they don't to me.

Yeah, with more open ended descriptions my blind imagination has no problem filling out any gaps. When I was younger I was frustrated and kept at it but to no avail. When I found out there was a time writers were paid per words / volume I became very selective in what I read. If it didn’t jive I’d skip. If the whole book was like that I’d skip entirely.

As a writer you should be true to yourself with the downside that your work would only cater to likeminded people and aside from not having larger audiences I see no probelm in that. Trying to be something you’re not is not fruitful

Yeah, I'm fortunate enough to have a good job and write mostly because I enjoy it, and it's liberating to not have to listen (though sometimes it's worth thinking through of it's because of preference or ego).

I can't imagine trying to make a living from it - it's an incredibly tough business.

You don't need to make living from it but you can live through it. Best way to develop yourself into the person you're supposed to be. Once money comes into the picture it messes everything up.

One of the things that kept me from pursuing art as a hobby was my skill of drawing couldn't match the detail and fidelity of the image in my head I wanted to draw, frustrating and discouraging me. With aphantasia, how was your experience starting out?

I started painting accidentally more or less. I have to say my experience was empowering and boundless on an imaginary scale. I enter flow state so easily at this point but the first time I stumbled onto it I painted for 12 hours straight and I didn’t feel tired nor did I feel excited about what I produced, I was just calm and pleased with the experience - it felt like a therapeutic purge. The second time I attempted to do it I failed and felt frustrated. Eventually I understood how to enter that ‘door’ and started preparing before each session. Once in a while Im not in the right state of mind and I stop the session, find something else to do with my time.

Another painter told me this is a known thing and he described an exerice he was showing his students: take a piece of paper, a pencil and draw circles of any kinds, small circles, large circles, circumscribed circles, most likely the shape doesn’t matter but the repetitive mindless action. He said in half an hour or so you’d want add something to that shape, then add something else after which one can let go of the exercise and just let the flow take over. Never tried the exercise myself but I see it working. When I paint I have my own preparation ritual.

This works in other areas such as programming, though the experience is slightly different.

With afantasia though I found that what’s what’s holding me back is picturing other peoples code model in my head and often I feel a map would help.