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I wonder if there was the same outcry in FMA fandom over the translations as there was in Saiyuuki? I turn the subtitles on, from laziness and inability to understand the alchemical terms just hearing them, and I keep noticing that what I see doesn't match what I hear. Ed says 'The day we decided to leave we burned down our house.' The subtitle says 'The day we left home we burned down the family house and all the memories in it-- because some memories aren't meant to last.' Farewell Japanese understatement, hello hammer it home with a mallet overkill. Some officious translator or, more likely, editor has a very low opinion of western intelligence.

I shall quote ~~Pratchett~~ Gaiman again, just for the fun of it:

"It's not Brits who think American readers are a bunch of whinging morons with the geo-social understanding of a wire coathanger, it's American editors."

I can't decide if writing when you're uninspired is like exercising when you feel tired or eating when you're not hungry. I bet it's the latter, because it leaves me at least feeling worse than when I started.

I'm also having a crisis of faith over writing in the first place. I mean it's one thing if you're a god-given original who has thoughts no-one else does. You have to write your stuff because nobody else will. But there aren't many of those. If you're just one of the moderately talented producers of pleasant prose, and especially if you're a fanwriter, why bother? Any idea you have will be had, sooner rather than later, by one or another of the other moderately talented PoPPs. Just wait a bit and your story will be written for you by someone else-- supposing it hasn't been already. If you're not burning to write this thing, why write it?

The carrot for most people seems to be 'So other people will say nice things about my fic.' Uhh, yeah. But we note yet again that it's always the worst stories that get the most reviews, and that praise from certain people is no compliment at all. Rather the reverse.

So if you're not writing for you and not writing for glory and certainly not writing for money, what are you writing for? Perhaps there are Mother Theresa writers who do it to give pleasure to other people, and derive pleasure from that fact. Very altruistic, but subject to backfire: any stories *I've* written to please other people have signally failed to please the people they were intended to.

So if you don't *have* to write, why do it?

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I hate to discourage writing in a skilled writer, but I'd pretty much assumed that was it, you know? Writers write because they can't help themselves, because it makes them feel better -- ever noticed that output goes up a little bit around final exam times when you'd really expect the reverse? Because every little group needed their storyteller, I suppose our larger society is doomed to be oversupplied. If you don't need to write anymore, I suppose your quality of life is better if you don't bother trying.

You may be a little harsh on the value of feedback, though. I wouldn't say that the people who've friended you are necessarily fans of the lowest common denominator, for starters. The pit of voles may feedback fics based on issues not limited to writing quality, but even they do not search out or prefer bad writing. If you want higher quality fb, have you considered finding a beta reader / creative writing group? Along with simple typo/grammar checks, the reader's deeper involvement often results in much higher quality analysis of the fic in terms of language, image, and theme.

Occasionally it's "because I want to make the audience bleed". In a metaphorical way. I have the story and I want to get the effect through. I need to get the reaction. The story exists and I have to get it out there and get people reading it and feeling it. I want to get it out of my brain where it's curling up like a parasitic growth and usurping everything else. I want to hear people praising me for writing such a good story. I don't want to stop because I'm afraid that if I do, I won't start again.

. . . you know, I don't really like what this is saying about me.

The state of /having/ to write is a blessed but not a permanent one. For sure, professional writers don't write because they absolutely feel impelled to do it. Listen to them bitching about it some time. 'Writing is really very easy. You just sit in front of the typewriter until beads of blood form on your forehead.'

Actually the pit of voles is the classic example of bad fics being preferred and praised over good ones. How not, given the kind of fast-fix reader it attracts? But the solution isn't just a better quality of feedback, because feedback itself isn't a good enough incentive to write a story. In fact I think it a very bad reason to write a story- 'I'm only writing this because I want to see what people will say about it.'

We'll skip the whole song and dance routine about how I feel feedback is Bad For You by definition. In fact, if I tell myself that I must not under any circumstances offer this story for public consumption anywhere, it suddenly becomes clearer what it is I want to write. 'Writing is really very easy. You just remove the possibility of an audience.'

I don't want to stop because I'm afraid that if I do, I won't start again

In a nutshell. But why not? In my case it's because writing is so damned painful. Of course so is not-writing painful. Lose-lose.

But what do you do when you have no stories in your brain that must be extracted and inflicted on Them Out There? 'I have an idea for a pleasant little fic, nothing much, and very like the stuff everyone else writes these days as well.' Is that worth writing or not?

There are days/moments/periods when I actually like writing. There are days/moments/periods when I don't. I have a bad track record of letting (other) things lapse because I can't be bothered, and then never getting back to them. I don't want that to happen with my writing. I'm worried that it may, because I know that I am a lazy person. And if I don't seem that way, it's in the same vein as the way that people have been known to comment on me standing up straight and having good posture; I do it because I'm prone to slouching. :)

But what do you do when you have no stories in your brain that must be extracted and inflicted on Them Out There? 'I have an idea for a pleasant little fic, nothing much, and very like the stuff everyone else writes these days as well.' Is that worth writing or not?

Yes. Yes, it is worth writing. If you actually have the idea for it, and it is distinct from nothingness, then it is individual and worth writing and worth reading. At least, that's how I'd view it.

The FMA American-release DVDs, for reasons beyond earthly comprehension, have two subtitle tracks. If you select from the DVD menu, you get what was said in the dub. If you use a DVD remote to select Japanese subtitles, you get a different translation. It's not that much better a translation, and it's cleverly hidden to help you avoid what quality there is, but it does exist.

Have not yet figured out which DVD-responsible exec needs to be beaten with a stick over this one.

Ah-hah, now that it a useful thing to think about--particularly since it seems to me I often write mostly to get patted on the head and told that I'm special. (Though I suspect that's also true of, at the very least, the majority of fan writers; why else would there be so much review blackmail and angst?)

written by another moderately talented PoPPs
True! And better yet if a more talented PoPP takes up the idea and runs away with it in ways I never imagined. But it's fairly rare, and even more unlikely in the small fandoms I seem to have gotten myself stuck in.

On the whole I write to amuse myself, or play with ideas, then clean up and post as a kind of discipline and because it might amuse others too. But if I'm feeling wildly uninspired, I just think over the problem area for a while, then while I'm busy and unable to write, eg while walking to/from work, ideas are bound to come up. (And then I forget them again when I sit down to write. Extremely annoying. ;_;)

(Back to earlier part of post - Isn't everybody a unique snowflake anyway? Even if it's a lot alike, there's usually a voice, turn of phrase, way of shaping story and ideas that stands out more the more/less skilled the PoPP is. But I usually prefer to read the more skilled side. :)

If you use a DVD remote to select Japanese subtitles

Uhh- you mean English subtitles, yes? I used the remote, not the menu. I think I didn't want to hear that the dub translation was worse.

But then I have a bone to pick with Funimation about the damned DBZ trailer that you can no more skip or ff than you can the FBI warning. I might hope that's only on rental DVDs though.

Mhh. Probably I'm just in a mid-summer funk right now. Lord knows I don't normally rant about the necessity of unique vision, complete originality, boldly going where no-one has gone before or even thought of going, yadda yadda. Just that it seems futile to be working the same old territory time after time. Terrible if it's everyone else's same old territory, but still bad enough if it's your own.

I suspect it's true of the majority as well. I do it myself; I just don't like the way jonesing for props starts to affect what I write. How can one write honestly when you're writing to please others? unless writing is a totally impersonal exercise, like business reports and essays.

??? I answered this and lj suddenly deleted it. Then put it back and deleted it again. Weird. Let's see if it comes back tomorrow.

Just wait a bit and your story will be written for you by someone else-- supposing it hasn't been already. If you're not burning to write this thing, why write it?

I think this is true. Someone else will eventually write something like it- not the same thing- but like it, and it will get praised and loved (most likely), and the story (and author) will become Queen For That Day. And a few days later, there will be a new Queen, and a few days later, another earlier Queen will bite her way back in with a swell AU s&m fantasy between pirates and ninjas. There are few places where there is only one writer. Even in original writing, you’ll find authors slamming each other for lifting ideas and plots from other books.

So if you don't *have* to write, why do it?

I don’t know. Because you want to? Or if it’s a chore on that day, to practice a little. I should talk, since I don’t do that. If I don’t want to do it, and I don’t have to do it, then it most likely won’t get done that day. Maybe not the next day either. And maybe not the day after that.

You can force yourself, like a marathon runner training for a race. (Even they take a day off though so they can rest their bodies.) Or a student studying for a test. But those two examples have an end result that they’re working towards. Personal writing often doesn’t have deadlines, events, or payoffs. There’s no guarantee, as you say, if people will like it, or say anything at all. There’s no ribbon to run through, or “A” to receive.

I guess one reason though, one reason to plug forward, even when it’s unfulfilling or without any goal, is that search for image you haven’t seen yet. Even if you’ve planned it out in your head, lying in bed before you sleep, or standing in line at the post office, or on a walk in the neighborhood, there’s still the process of getting it down in words, and often, doing that can change, fill out, give new life to a story that you already knew. Sometimes, writing it down will help you when you don’t know where to go next.

Later, you can look back at it, and you won’t remember where THAT idea came from, or THAT phrase, or THAT dialogue that fits so…well. It just happened suddenly. And because we don’t know when that will happen, it gives a small incentive to move forward, to try, even when it looks like it’s a dead end.

This doesn’t work all the time, but it does work. It does happen.

I can’t say too much, because I’ve been stuck for months- no writing, no reading really either. And it’s hard. You feel like what you had might be gone, and that’s scary. And you feel somewhat forgotten, and that’s sad. But, you never know what will happen next. And that, by itself, is comforting.

I think I have a dragon story or two to catch up on still, but I will say now that these images that you have given before are always amazing, and exciting, and very original.

Hee, lj is weird. I was wondering about the comment-count vaccilating between 10-11 on my friendspage and always showing only 10 comments on the post.

I'm not sure about how writing for props would work... even things like yuletide where one theoretically writes for someone else works mainly as a source of ideas and guideline for an approximate mood - silly? angsty? etc. If they like it, it's a kind of validation - yay, I made someone happy, but I have no notion how to tailor something specifically to please someone.

Depends how active you are in the fandom and the meta-fandom, I suppose. It's like writing a Hazel story when you're not particularly a Hazel fan and think the HazelxSanzou pairing not merely unlikely but repulsive. But there's a coterie of Hazel fans and to get their attention you write the pairing the same way they do, so everyone will say Go- go and read mjj's shiny!Hazel fic it's wonnerful!!

Like that.

Even in original writing, you’ll find authors slamming each other for lifting ideas and plots from other books

Which is why writing for yourself and maybe your friends (if you have sensible friends, as I do) is such a good idea. You're not courting popularity and falling into all the unbecoming behaviours that go with it, like holding fics to ransom for reviews. The writing is what matters, not the response to it.

If you're serious about being a writer then there's virtue in forcing yourself, just to get over the notion that you /must/ be inspired to write. But I'm strictly an amateur and I do it for fun; and it's only fun when I'm inspired.

Besides, while I think you can write respectably when uninspired I don't think you can write at the top of your form; and that, I fancy, is one reason why professional novelists produce so much uninspired work. There's a deadline or a contract or whatever and something gets written to fill it: but I often think, 'If that's the best you can do why do you bother?' Yes I know- it pays the bills. Just.

And it does happen that inspiration comes as you write. There's a school of thought that says it's more likely to come when you're writing than when you're not, so keep on writing. But when it doesn't come it's dreary. There's your nice little fic, all polished and pretty, and it doesn't resonate for you at all. It's clever. End story. Feh.

Fandom is young, she says from the lofty altitude of her advanced years, which may be why I see little moaning about the Andrea del Sarto paradox. The 'a man's reach should exceed his grasp or what's a heaven for?' guy. Fandom is still surprised to discover that tastes do evolve, and what it loved to death five years ago now looks truly baaad. But equally- what you could write five years ago isn't good enough any more. Been there, done that, could write that story over the phone now. One wants something more, and there may not be a more to be had. There are limits to what any one person is capable of, and, well, bumping up against those limits is not a pleasant experience. 'This is as good as it gets' is an epitaph, not a recommendation.

But there aren't many of those. If you're just one of the moderately talented producers of pleasant prose, and especially if you're a fanwriter, why bother?

Not so much the destination as the journey, etc., etc. Besides, thinking of anyone else writing Dragons makes me cringe. ^_^

Ahh. Mmhh. Process not product, as we say when the tinies scribble on and off the paper. That's a thought. Perhaps paradoxically, removing any consideration of the possible value the product may have makes the process seem more worthwhile, even if it's painful. Suffering to produce something forgettable seems daft, but suffering in itself seems perfectly reasonable...

...well it *does*, but I think we'd better drop this line of thought.

These days everybody and his flipping brother-- not to mention sister, aunt, and third cousin once removed's nephew's mother-in-law-- writes dragons. It's the Thing just now. 'Course AFAIK none of them have incestuous homosexual sex, which I suppose makes mine unique.

(Go fandom indeed. It doesn't always remove the ugly emotions but it can.)

The Whee!! part I know. This is about when there's no Whee!! When you're simply uninspired. To quote (or maybe paraphrase) a long ago book, 'I didn't particularly want to be where I was but I couldn't think of anywhere else I wanted to be.' Dreary stale flat and unprofitable.

You at least have a reason to write when you don't feel like it: it's what pros must do. It's part of the job of being a pro writer, like submitting MSS to editors. But what incentive does the amateur have? 'The magic may return'?

(I'm navel-gazing for a reason, of course, and it's got nothing to do with writing and everything to do with translating Wild Adaptor. Now ask me why I translate when it's painful plodding work for no reward. And the answer is, Because I can.)

And now I feel guilty that you've suffered for my entertainment - it hardly qualifies as encouragement or motivation, more likely the reverse. Just please ignore that person rummaging through the dragon directory when she thinks no one is looking. ^_^;;

'Course AFAIK none of them have incestuous homosexual sex, which I suppose makes mine unique.

Sex? There's sex? I'm reading for the court politics and sibling dynamics. And the poetry courtships. And the Kanzeon sightings. And the training of young dragons.... :D

Speaking of dragons, have you read Tooth and Claw (http://www.sfsite.com/11b/tc164.htm)? It's great fun.

Ahh- but nobody broke my fingers to make me write those fics. A good thing too, or I couldn't have. You may enjoy them with a perfectly clear conscience.

Oh, no sex at all, right. It's all social ritual and training young dragons in ahh social ritual.

For complex reasons I won't read Tooth and Claw except for the occasional brief tachiyomi. Some day when I've finished writing my own dragons, yes.

I am not as smart or well-educated or well-read or talented as many of the people here, so I am probably speaking out of turn. But I write because the story wants to be told, and it won't leave me alone until I tell it. It's almost like a -- I *hate* to put it this way, but I can't think of any other way to -- like a bodily function. Or like a little alien chest-burster that has to come out. Once it's out, it runs away and I never see it again, and that's fine. I've done my duty -- I've served as the host body.

And sometimes it can even be creepy how a story will go galloping merrily off into an entirely different direction than I'd thought it would go. That scares me sometimes and makes me feel like I can't control it -- but then again I have no idea where it comes from, and I usually just regard myself as a conduit.

Sometimes it's there; most of the time it's not. When it's there, it's pretty insistent. It can take a while to incubate; I tend to write in my head nowadays before committing something to paper, and a story can take months to process that way. But once it's ready, it's ready -- and nothing I can do can stop it, or make it come along any quicker.

Yeah, that's the *have* to write thing. I like it when it happens; the world is so simple. As you say, it's almost a physical function that you yourself have little say in. But when there isn't that pressing need- when there's only a mild intellectual 'well I could write a story about this' sort of thought- that's when I wonder Why bother? It's only a plot bunny, if that, and it's easier to ignore than to write.

That's largely why I promised myself I'd never get myself into a situation where I **have** to write, like if my paycheck depended on it or something. I let myself write what I want, when I want, and if it's a plotbunny, I let it incubate until it turns into a REALLY BIG plotbunny that's impossible to ignore. Or I jot down notes and lose them on my computer, and then find them someday and go "Oh, hey, that's a pretty cool idea, I oughta run with that." And sometimes it works out okay.

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