the writer in (fetal, panicked, existential) repose

[thehefner]

Now that I have that post out of my system, I'm increasingly feeling a sense that I'm spending too much time in fan-related things.

Man, would that I could be a professional fan, like Forrest J. Ackerman or somebody! Or hell, I wish I could be the Roger Ebert of comics, but for whatever reason, this industry and its fans scorn actual criticism. It's either "this is awesome!" or "this sucks!" with no thought in between.

As it is, I worry that I'm wasting time and energy on trivia, even if it's trivia about which I'm incredibly passionate. I love this shit. Love, love, love it, and I want others to love it too. But am I wasting my time celebrating the works of others rather than creating my own? My brother would say yes, he always has, but he's never been a fan of anything.

I suppose this could just be signs that I'm finally getting ready for Fringe season. After all, during my most stressed and exhausted times, all I wanted to do was talk about comic stuff. Makes sense I'd throw myself into it utterly in my downtime.

But I have other things I should be writing. Original works, things that might actually get published. I'm finally ready to get back to work on Johnny Go--for those of you who still remember Johnny Go--but the project still intimidates me. I don't want to force myself, because that does no good, but I can't just sit and wait to feel like writing, because professional writers all seem to say that doesn't work either.

The writer's block has been stronger than ever lately. I never used to get it! I always had something to write! It's still the case, but most of those "somethings" aren't something that I can publish. At least, not unless DC would let me. Man, I wish DC would let me.

I just keep reminding myself that I'm young, that most writers don't really write their great stuff until they're forty, at least. But the only times I ever feel like I'm expressing myself anymore is when I write about films or comics. I want to create, but too often, I've found myself able to only write a paragraph or two before I collapse into a shivering, screaming ball of neuroses. It's the classic "I suck, everything I do sucks, I have no real life experience compared to (fill in name of somebody I know), I have no imagination, no one cares, I should just die!" thing that I think most artists go through.

Even writing this here feels like a waste of time. Like procrastination. Like wankery. It's one reason why I've been so absent from LJ (that and real life in general). Maybe I should be channeling this energy into art, or maybe I need to drain the wound here so I can move on.

Either way, I'm sure one or two of you have insights into this, and ways you've gotten through 'em. Feel free to pass them along. Or not. I know, intellectually, that this too shall pass, and the drought will end, and that I will someday write again. Hell, I know I'm capable of it. I've written three full-length novels. I have to remember that. I just need to work through whatever's gumming up the works so I can get onto the fourth one, which will hopefully be the one I can actually publish.

So... how do I feel now? Cleansed? Dirty? Exhausted? Energized? Right now, I kinda just want a taco. That much, I know I can handle.

Comments

[captaintwinings.livejournal.com]

Oh no, that feeling. I hate that feeling.

You do have imagination, and you've got style, and that will get you farther than real life experience.

Anyway, you write because you have something to say, not just because you want to publish it. Your lj is interesting because you write about things that interest you. If you want to be published, you'll find a way--you have the talent. But you shouldn't feel like that's the only thing that's important.

Chocolate puppy sparkles!

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Cap'n. Means a lot coming from you. Really, I suppose so long as I'm writing what I want to be writing at any point, the rest will fall into place. I think. I hope.

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

I'm reminded of the story that my grandma used to tell about her painting:

"I did it for so long before I realized I would never be professionally good at it, and for a while after that, I felt like I'd been wasting my time doing something with my only reward being that I enjoyed doing it, until I realized that my reward was that I enjoyed doing it, whether I was professionally good at it or not."

My LJ is where I decompress and hash things out and work out my issues with my fandoms, with porn and with the world around me. I do my NuSpidey sales charts posts every single month, without fail, because they are my Zen rock garden — every month, the new numbers roll in, and every month, I run my formulas and crunch my codes and try to read what the tea leaves tell me. Of all the types of posts I do on my LJ, those are probably my f-list's least favorite, but I find the exercise of doing them remarkably soothing. It makes me feel like Max Cohen in π — within those sales figures, there's a pattern, right in front of me, hiding behind the numbers.



We do not do these things because we are permitted. We do them because we are compelled. We write because we need to express ourselves, regardless of who's listening. Maybe you'll find a broader audience. I hope you will. You deserve to find one. Then again, maybe you won't. Either way, it doesn't mean you should stop using your voice, either in trying to get published or in writing on this LJ. You speak because you have things to say, and we enjoy hearing them.

[yaseen101.livejournal.com]

Same sentiments here.

My zen rock garden is probably the time when I put on my head phones and listening to the music as I type away my fic or post and whenever I'm in the cafe with the laptop on the table with the music soothes my mind and I'm able to focus on whatever I'm doing.

I know a lot of stuff that I write won't be everyone's cup of tea and while I try to exercise some humility I'm at the same time proud to have written it.

Though I find that discussing and debating the stuff I write gives it a sense of closure and finality to it.

Another piece of good advice I got is that 'the first part of anything is struggle' and that kind of applies to stuff we love doing as well. I would rather struggle and earn something rather than get there free.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Appropriate quote is appropriate, even if it's from a crazypants source who is hardly an ideal role model.

Seriously, thanks, man. :)

[kmousie.livejournal.com]

Editor, at your service. *\o/* and ♥

Not that I don't have a ton of stuff to read already, but it would be nice to work on something fun for a while.

[surrealname.livejournal.com]

I'm having a bit of a writer crisis over here myself. I'm finally getting around to sending out rounds of submissions to poetry magazines. I am never more uptight about the things I have written than when I send them off to some one who might publish them. I worry that my influences are too obvious (though every tells me my poetic voice is entirely my own). I worry about the subject matter I write about. I am not an intellectual poet. I do not attempt to answer questions or find any kind of meaning in my work. I don't write or care about the big picture, I write about smaller things, personal things. I write about my girlfriends and cigarettes and my experiences. I worry that the intelligencia who run the little magazines will find my work juvenile or that i will be misunderstood and labelled a misogynist. Actually, I've long since accepted that some mental midget with a head for of Camille Paglia will take one look at my stuff and cry misogyny, so that in and of itself does not worry me, but I worry that being branded as that will hold back my work.

As for the writer's block, I've come to accept it as a part of my life. Something that will come and go. My advice is to write through it, then go back and make it better. That's what ever writer and every teacher i've ever had is the thing to do.

That said, drinking 32 ounces of coffee, taking 120 miligrams of adderal (over the course of 16 hours, mind you with the adderal) and then taking a long walk just as the haloes start to form in your eyes around all the street lights and then smoking atleast 15 cigarettes always jump starts me.

The realization of how much my creative drive is connected to my use and even abuse of my medications saddens me sometimes.

[sara-lakali.livejournal.com]

Have a near-death experience. Nothing gets you creating like a serious brush with death.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

I think I'll just let that one come in its own time. Lord knows I push my luck enough as it is. It's seriously a wonder that I'm not dead yet from the crap I wander into.

[tragical-mirth.livejournal.com]

Man, don't buy that writing better at age 40 bs. Just do it. :)

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

I'm doing it in SOME form, just not necessarily in the form I think would be best. Does that count?

[yaseen101.livejournal.com]

Also; don't buy the 40's bull crap.

[yaseen101.livejournal.com]

I was initially going to wait from posting in your blogs after the wierdness that ensued in the recent fan art post (I was joking) and let stuff air out for a bit.

I totally get where you are coming from, I have been working on my own fan fic series and since it's a Naruto fanfic everyone would automatically be turned off by the very name but it's incredibly important for me and I just can't let this one go. Yet at the same time I have a blog running there are so many things I want to post and write about but just couldn't get around to it. Maybe I'm just disorganized but last night when I was reunited with someone on the interwebs and we got to talk about a lot of manga stuff plus he existed on a similar wave length as I, suddenly the migraine didn't matter because i had someone to geek out with.

Maybe I was just procrastinating, maybe it's because I'm very disorganized, maybe it's because I'm too miserable in real life but either way at the end of the day I can only do stuff I really want to do or rather stuff that I feel the strongest doing.

Plus I'm far more stimulated working at a coffee shop than in my room. I think environment can be a huge factor as well, so I reckon you try some place that stimulates and relaxes you. Doesn't matter whether it's a bath tub or a sewer pipe, any place that relaxes you and allows you to focus is probably a good starting point.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

There's no audience for a Naruto fanfic? I would have thought for sure that there'd be a fandom out there that would be receptive to it.

Either way, as someone who has spent years on a Harvey Dent novel, I'm very, very sympathetic on the "fanfic everyone would automatically be turned off by the very name but it's incredibly important for me and I just can't let this one go" front.

There is seriously nothing, nothing like the power of having someone to geek out with. That kind of passion brings people together in ways nothing else can, save for sporting events (and really, it's the same basic psychological drive, when you get right down to it).

[yaseen101.livejournal.com]

Well, don't get me wrong there are some really awesome people in the fandom, some of who are even now helping me out of some tough spots in the story's narrative (like the fight scenes)and I have lots of crazy stories from my time there but it's just that I have gotten more feedback for incorporating script bits to the dialogue parts and hardly any thoughts on the actual story; which was what I was really wanted to know more about. Plus I was wondering what a person who haven't read the manga or at least read it and left in frustration would think of it, so that I can gauge what the larger spectrum thinks.

Of course I'm expecting a bit too much from one chapter, the next one has far more happening in it and hopefully will get more responses to it. Plus some shameless self promotion on DeviantArt and on LJ wouldn't hurt anyone.

Agreed on the geeking out thing. There's nothing like it.