Navel Gazing
Aug. 28th, 2011 08:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
machshefaWhat follows is my attempt to make sense of some currently shapeless thoughts and feelings by thinking 'out loud', so to speak. Feel free to skip the navel gazing and wandering in circles and go right to the questions at the end. I'd LOVE to have lots and lots of discussion here if people are interested in the topic. Or, skip the whole thing and enjoy your evening. :)
So, I'm beginning to detect a pattern.
I finish a big story (this time, my SSHG Exchange Story), dip my toe back into reading other people's words, and, inevitably, begin to wonder about why I do this writing thing, anyway. I wonder what compels me to spend hours and hours each week struggling with images and voices and story, especially when there is no lack of absolutely brilliant stuff out there already (and being posted all the time). When I'm in the middle of a story, every spare block of time is mentally given over to writing. It's difficult for me to put it aside and do other things that need doing. When a story is finished, it feels odd to not have the story pulling at my attention and filling my schedule.
I never planned to write fiction. I've never taken a writing class or pursued creative writing in any structured fashion. In fact, I don't think I ever wrote a story until four years ago. I do remember having vague notions of one day writing SF/F when I was a kid. Not that I had a specific story to tell, mind you. I just remember that powerful desire to be able to DO what my favorite writers could do. (To transport, to emotionally move the reader in some important way, to transform. Oh, man. How egocentric is that? Argh.)
The desire faded in the face of my academic ambitions and clinical training and never really emerged again until I got poked to write a story instead of doing (mediocre) art (that was decidedly not going well) for an exchange.
So what's the issue? Well. Hmm. First is the 'why?'
I still don't really understand why I write, and am aggravated that there is still a very old voice that insists I am either BIG or SMALL and taunts me with my shortcomings as a writer. Of course, that voice also taunts me about all manner of shortcomings. It's not unique to writing. But writing is my hobby, not something I must do. Not like parenting or work or keeping my life and family basically on track.
Until I began to read in the Sherlock fandom, I had never, ever written a story that wasn't spurred by a prompt. Mostly I wrote for exchanges and fests, or at least began a story in response to some sort of structured request. I was relieved to be reading without also writing in my shiny new fandom. It was pure pleasure to read and not have any internal voice comparing my work to what I was enjoying from others.
Imagine my surprise when Sherlock's voice began whispering in my ear. Voice and a story (and a title) had never arrived in my head this way, basically fully formed. It was fascinating to me, and did make the experience of writing that series different. It felt less like trying to make the story happen and more like being a conduit to something outside of myself or, perhaps, deeper inside myself. I'm not sure.
So, then, I wonder whether my writing is more about self-expression or communication. I wonder how much audience matters. I consider what it would feel like if everything I wrote was seen only by me or perhaps by my closest writing friends.
As the 'why' sits and spins, I come to the 'how?' One of the most interesting parts of fandom for me has been observing the range of styles and approaches to storytelling. I've learned so much over the last few years and become very familiar with my own strengths and weaknesses.
I'm aware that learning to write and to tell a compelling story is developmental. Everybody learns and grows and hones their craft. I get this. I'm okay with this. I know that some writers I adore have been writing for decades. I know that many writers I adore have always considered themselves writers, always felt the urge and need to tell a story and to shape words into worlds and transport their readers there. I'm a baby (okay, maybe a preschooler) compared to those writers. :)
There are a number of writers in the Sherlock fandom and in HP whose stories I'll read and then think, "I'll never write again. Why bother?" It's not self-flagellation or a cry for reassurance. It's a measure of the way the story moves me, of the magic in the style, to the way those stories make me think or how they define the characters in ways that transform my understanding of the characters and myself.
There are stories and storytellers who cast such long shadows because of the power of their work that it feels self-indulgent to try to reach for those same heights. This makes me contemplate the way stories impact me (and others, I imagine). It makes me think about how transformative stories are and how much they change me and always have.
Words. Powerful things, words. I use them in my work. I hear them in all their cacophony and melody. In a clinical setting, I need to be able to join with people through their words (and other ways of showing me what is going on under the surface). I need to recognize the rhythms and, often, help people to change them. I can do this (well enough, usually) face to face with people. I hope I can sometimes do this in a story, but I don't think I do it consistently enough. Not powerfully enough. Just not enough.
I did warn you that this was a whole lot of navel gazing.
*rereads what I've written
Oh.
It's all about identity for me.
Big surprise. It's always all about identity (for me). ;)
So. Why do you write?
How did you learn to write? What do you feel you're still learning to do?
How much is your identity wrapped up in your writing and storytelling?
How much does audience play into what you do and how you do it?
What makes certain stories shine (yours or others) in your eyes? What do you look for in a story? What draws you to read certain stories or certain writers?
Does anybody else get this crash after finishing a big or otherwise important (to you) story? Does anybody know why it happens? LOL
Does anybody else wonder why they do this and feel like they've just ripped off their skin and are waiting for the world's approval/approvation/rejection/indifference every time they post something?
Just wondering. ;)
So, I'm beginning to detect a pattern.
I finish a big story (this time, my SSHG Exchange Story), dip my toe back into reading other people's words, and, inevitably, begin to wonder about why I do this writing thing, anyway. I wonder what compels me to spend hours and hours each week struggling with images and voices and story, especially when there is no lack of absolutely brilliant stuff out there already (and being posted all the time). When I'm in the middle of a story, every spare block of time is mentally given over to writing. It's difficult for me to put it aside and do other things that need doing. When a story is finished, it feels odd to not have the story pulling at my attention and filling my schedule.
I never planned to write fiction. I've never taken a writing class or pursued creative writing in any structured fashion. In fact, I don't think I ever wrote a story until four years ago. I do remember having vague notions of one day writing SF/F when I was a kid. Not that I had a specific story to tell, mind you. I just remember that powerful desire to be able to DO what my favorite writers could do. (To transport, to emotionally move the reader in some important way, to transform. Oh, man. How egocentric is that? Argh.)
The desire faded in the face of my academic ambitions and clinical training and never really emerged again until I got poked to write a story instead of doing (mediocre) art (that was decidedly not going well) for an exchange.
So what's the issue? Well. Hmm. First is the 'why?'
I still don't really understand why I write, and am aggravated that there is still a very old voice that insists I am either BIG or SMALL and taunts me with my shortcomings as a writer. Of course, that voice also taunts me about all manner of shortcomings. It's not unique to writing. But writing is my hobby, not something I must do. Not like parenting or work or keeping my life and family basically on track.
Until I began to read in the Sherlock fandom, I had never, ever written a story that wasn't spurred by a prompt. Mostly I wrote for exchanges and fests, or at least began a story in response to some sort of structured request. I was relieved to be reading without also writing in my shiny new fandom. It was pure pleasure to read and not have any internal voice comparing my work to what I was enjoying from others.
Imagine my surprise when Sherlock's voice began whispering in my ear. Voice and a story (and a title) had never arrived in my head this way, basically fully formed. It was fascinating to me, and did make the experience of writing that series different. It felt less like trying to make the story happen and more like being a conduit to something outside of myself or, perhaps, deeper inside myself. I'm not sure.
So, then, I wonder whether my writing is more about self-expression or communication. I wonder how much audience matters. I consider what it would feel like if everything I wrote was seen only by me or perhaps by my closest writing friends.
As the 'why' sits and spins, I come to the 'how?' One of the most interesting parts of fandom for me has been observing the range of styles and approaches to storytelling. I've learned so much over the last few years and become very familiar with my own strengths and weaknesses.
I'm aware that learning to write and to tell a compelling story is developmental. Everybody learns and grows and hones their craft. I get this. I'm okay with this. I know that some writers I adore have been writing for decades. I know that many writers I adore have always considered themselves writers, always felt the urge and need to tell a story and to shape words into worlds and transport their readers there. I'm a baby (okay, maybe a preschooler) compared to those writers. :)
There are a number of writers in the Sherlock fandom and in HP whose stories I'll read and then think, "I'll never write again. Why bother?" It's not self-flagellation or a cry for reassurance. It's a measure of the way the story moves me, of the magic in the style, to the way those stories make me think or how they define the characters in ways that transform my understanding of the characters and myself.
There are stories and storytellers who cast such long shadows because of the power of their work that it feels self-indulgent to try to reach for those same heights. This makes me contemplate the way stories impact me (and others, I imagine). It makes me think about how transformative stories are and how much they change me and always have.
Words. Powerful things, words. I use them in my work. I hear them in all their cacophony and melody. In a clinical setting, I need to be able to join with people through their words (and other ways of showing me what is going on under the surface). I need to recognize the rhythms and, often, help people to change them. I can do this (well enough, usually) face to face with people. I hope I can sometimes do this in a story, but I don't think I do it consistently enough. Not powerfully enough. Just not enough.
I did warn you that this was a whole lot of navel gazing.
*rereads what I've written
Oh.
It's all about identity for me.
Big surprise. It's always all about identity (for me). ;)
So. Why do you write?
How did you learn to write? What do you feel you're still learning to do?
How much is your identity wrapped up in your writing and storytelling?
How much does audience play into what you do and how you do it?
What makes certain stories shine (yours or others) in your eyes? What do you look for in a story? What draws you to read certain stories or certain writers?
Does anybody else get this crash after finishing a big or otherwise important (to you) story? Does anybody know why it happens? LOL
Does anybody else wonder why they do this and feel like they've just ripped off their skin and are waiting for the world's approval/approvation/rejection/indifference every time they post something?
Just wondering. ;)
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no subject
Date: 2011-08-30 12:43 pm (UTC)Let me think about this and get back to you.
How did you learn to write? What do you feel you're still learning to do?
How? I've no idea. I wrote my first story when I was six years old, probably with a good deal of help from my mom, and I've been doing it ever since.
What am I still learning to do? Gosh, everything.
How much is your identity wrapped up in your writing and storytelling?
The answer to this question seems to rear its ugly head when I'm not writing more than when I'm writing, for when I'm not writing, there is the self-flagellation, the wonder at will I ever have another story worth telling?, etc. etc. etc. When I'm writing, even when it's hard, it feels like the most natural thing in the world, like I'm in my favorite zone and am functioning at my highest personal level. In fact, this is part of why writing for *prompts* is so gosh darn stressful for me - I yearn for - crave - that peak of writing where there are no boundaries, where I'm flying off a building and weaving my own safety net at the same time, and I do not like being constrained by someone else's desires, by having to check my creative impulses within someone else's cage. I still do exchanges for the community, for the prompts even, but goodness, in those instances it takes a freaking village to get me through a story (as you well know). When I'm writing just for me, something completely out of my brain (or, alternately, something for a friend who gave me an exceptionally open-ended prompt - Lyonesse is for Ari, after all), well, then I'm not a writer, I'm just writing, and that's the best place to be. It's when I'm worried about being a Real Serious Writer that my head and pride get all out of joint.
How much does audience play into what you do and how you do it?
Honestly, I don't think about them when I'm writing. When I'm not writing, maybe (certainly when reviewers don't like things, you think about them!). And when I'm doing an exchange, then yes, there's that consideration.
The audience I really care about pleasing are my first readers - friends with critical eyes who check my grammar and tell me if something is unbelievable. And in that case, it's not so much that I'm writing with an eye to please them as it is that when I'm done writing, I bite my fingernails as the "sent" button is pressed ... there's definitely that desire for appreciation, but it's not in my mind as I write (and if it is, then it's crippling and I am probably not writing that day).
What makes certain stories shine (yours or others) in your eyes? What do you look for in a story? What draws you to read certain stories or certain writers?
I want to lose myself in a story. I want to feel what they feel, see what they see, hear what they say. I want to forget I'm reading.
Does anybody else wonder why they do this and feel like they've just ripped off their skin and are waiting for the world's approval/approvation/rejection/indifference every time they post something?
When I get this feeling, it's with original work, not fanfiction. Fanfiction is so comfortable; it's an old glove, an old friend, and I feel like I can just slip in and be totally emotionally honest, but behind this veil of the Harry Potter world. It's not even "me" writing - most people in my life do not know about this fanfiction, about these successes and failures. I use a pseudonym and hope it's enough to mask the real me. Original fiction - all of the things that have allowed me to explore creatively over these last few years (community, anonymity) ... those are gone. Submitting my original work is terrifying, especially since it's like you're submitting it into an empty void where there is no immediate feedback ... and that's perhaps worse than flaming reviews - the possibility that you've written something and no one has noticed it.
And on that warm thought, I must refill my coffee. ~hugs you tight~
no subject
Date: 2011-08-30 12:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-31 02:37 pm (UTC)*hugs
no subject
Date: 2011-08-31 02:37 pm (UTC)The desire for appreciation is a big one. Wanting the story and the emotions to resonate with someone else. For the form and the words and the images to be meaningful outside my own head.
I so agree that the worst outcome is that empty void. Meep.
*hugs