flemmings | (no subject)

My father used to say,
'Superior people never make long visits,
have to be shown Longfellow's grave
nor the glass flowers at Harvard
Self reliant like the cat --
that takes its prey to privacy,
the mouse's limp tail hanging like a shoelace from its mouth--

I think that's all I want to say, actually. Not talking about one's fic in progress seems so admirable, and so impossible. Fic-natter is a nervous habit, the kind you try to suppress before interviews- biting your nails or scratching a hangnail or fiddling with your hair. Or nervous-talk, even more: 'You think this top looks good on me? It's not too big? Really it goes with the pants? I'm just not sure about the pants but I can't buy new ones but just these pants I never liked them do you think the pants are OK maybe I should wear a skirt with this top oh but that means nylons...' Necessary somehow but oh how one dumbly admires people who don't do it. Superior people are silent. Some of them are so silent they don't write at all. But that, you know, is the *next* temptation of Christ.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I often need to talk it through. It's not just want, it's having to; it's putting fragments of plot together and finding that it makes sense when I have to explain it, or tossing tennis balls out and seeing how they bounce back. Parts I can do myself, but parts I need reaction for. It's annoying.

LOL! I think of that as the GM's curse. It doesn't help that the players will do whatever they please and to heck with the GM's well laid plans.

Talk-talk-talk, and talk some more. It's all good. Whatever helps. Sometimes you don't realize something until you actually write it out, or talk it out, or for some of that wacky few, interpretationally dance it out. Whenever we're working through something, i.e "My crappy job! Ooooooh, I'm gonna leave it!" (cough) or "I'm gonna lose these 5 (cough) 30lbs!" I'm going to move, I'm going to finish this here scarf, I'm going to get a cat, I'm going to break-up-with-him-oh-I-so-will, I'm going to finish this project, and I'm going to ask her out, etc. We all do this. We're not all stoic cats who drag their kill off quietly, only to present it later in all its bloody glory on the doorstep. And I bet there are cats out there who sit on that doorstep, twitch their tail, and say to the dozing cat next to them. "I'm going to get that mouse. I will. You'll see. I'm going to go over there and- Hey...are you even listening?"

Maybe that cat won't get a poem written about him, but I find him endearing (and more like me, cough). Besides, those stoic poets were all alcoholics, so self-reliance my ass. And Thorough had dinner at Emerson's house all the time at Walden Pond. "Living in nature...at my friend's house! Score!"

This was a bit long, but in short (cough), please continue.

There are things that are helped by being written out and talked over, and things that aren't. If the chronic grousing over your parents or sig.oth accomplishes nothing except to give you the false sense that you've done something about the problem, then the venting isn't accomplishing anything. It's just chronic grousing. Same with fic-natter. If it gets you feedback that's useful, if it clarifies your thoughts, if it relieves anxiety even, then it serves a purpose. If it's just nervous natter not intended to do any of those things, merely to give the impression that you're wrestling with thorny problems, then it's a red herring. In my case I think it's a red herring, for reasons listed down there under N's post. Because if I really wanted to clarify my thoughts or get feedback I'd be writing to you. ^_^

(deleted comment)

What do you care what other people think of what you write in your blogs?

Mhh, I don't, actually. *I* personally find it mittomonai when I talk about a half-finished fic here. I don't quite know why aside from a sense that it's dishonest- wringing my hands in public over a problem that either isn't that bad or that won't be helped by wringing my hands. Seriously, if I want to make actual progress with the crux in question I know I need to sit with the story and thrash the thing out, however dispiriting and tedious the hacking exercise is. Going "Argh argh argh my fic won't co-operate" isn't cathartic for me; it not only accomplishes nothing, it often makes me feel worse, since it's hideously reminiscent of my procrastination over university essays. (No children, the trauma of those never fades, even decades later.)

I'll leave aside the suggestion of Look at me the Creative Genius having Creative Angst posh eh what? If there truly is no thought of that in the angster then well and good, but in my case I suspect there is. And it's mittomonai.