![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Nov. 19th, 2013 10:10 pmThis may seem an odd thing to feel the need to say aloud, but sometimes it's worth saying. And today, while not bad, wasn't an especially great writing day, either, so I'm not coming off a writing high when I decided this needed posting. Still, apropos of a few things I've read lately, and seen other writers write:
I LIKE the things I write. Heck, I LOVE many of them. (Some things that got trunked might now involve different, and less positive, feelings. But maybe that was why they were trunked.)
Even when they're obvious first drafts I'd feel embarrassed to have others see. Even when they're not turning out how I want. Even when they're not exciting because they're following the plot I planned like clockwork. Even when they're springing random surprises I don't know WHAT the Heck I am supposed to do with. (Maybe especially then, actually...)
I think the stories are awesome even when the execution needs help to be up to publication standards. I LOVE these stories. I love them when they cross well trodden ground many view with affection and others disdain as too common, too cliche. I love them when they go weird places nobody seems to wander and where I don't know if they'll survive or anyone will ever want to look.
I love a lot of my words, the ones in the middle of workmanlike work and repetitious first draft dreck that suddenly pop up and gleam.
Maybe The Illusion of Steel is years old and I could do better now.
Maybe Bird of Dusk is depressing as hell.
Maybe The Serpent Prince is yet another cod-medieval teenage white male hero Prince story.
Maybe Raising the Storm is 180,000 words long and won't sell until everything else does.
Maybe the story I'm writing now has a central plot point and working title blatantly and knowingly ripped off a Jim Henson movie from the 80s.
Maybe I wrote freaking Puff the Magic Dragon Fanfic.
I STILL love ALL OF THEM.
It seems sometimes like writers feel they can't say that. They can say "Thank you" when others love their work. They can say "It was the best I could do when I wrote it." with careful modesty, a line which emphasizes, Ï know it\s screwed up"even as it appears to praise the book. We can flail and blush to know people have read our published sex scenes (Or blame them on our co-author).
We can't, at least not often, say, "Oh, you liked that bit? I thought it turned out awesome! I loved that moment, too." without accusations of unprofessionalism. (And it's also true that love doesn't blind one to flaws, as anyone who loves another human being (with any kind of love) should know.)
But the truth is: I wouldn't write these things if sometimes, somewhere, they ahdn't made me squee and rejoice and itch to get them out. If I hadn't laughed and cried over them like I hope someday some readers do.
It seems like a secret, but it isn't. It shouldn't be.
That is all.
I LIKE the things I write. Heck, I LOVE many of them. (Some things that got trunked might now involve different, and less positive, feelings. But maybe that was why they were trunked.)
Even when they're obvious first drafts I'd feel embarrassed to have others see. Even when they're not turning out how I want. Even when they're not exciting because they're following the plot I planned like clockwork. Even when they're springing random surprises I don't know WHAT the Heck I am supposed to do with. (Maybe especially then, actually...)
I think the stories are awesome even when the execution needs help to be up to publication standards. I LOVE these stories. I love them when they cross well trodden ground many view with affection and others disdain as too common, too cliche. I love them when they go weird places nobody seems to wander and where I don't know if they'll survive or anyone will ever want to look.
I love a lot of my words, the ones in the middle of workmanlike work and repetitious first draft dreck that suddenly pop up and gleam.
Maybe The Illusion of Steel is years old and I could do better now.
Maybe Bird of Dusk is depressing as hell.
Maybe The Serpent Prince is yet another cod-medieval teenage white male hero Prince story.
Maybe Raising the Storm is 180,000 words long and won't sell until everything else does.
Maybe the story I'm writing now has a central plot point and working title blatantly and knowingly ripped off a Jim Henson movie from the 80s.
Maybe I wrote freaking Puff the Magic Dragon Fanfic.
I STILL love ALL OF THEM.
It seems sometimes like writers feel they can't say that. They can say "Thank you" when others love their work. They can say "It was the best I could do when I wrote it." with careful modesty, a line which emphasizes, Ï know it\s screwed up"even as it appears to praise the book. We can flail and blush to know people have read our published sex scenes (Or blame them on our co-author).
We can't, at least not often, say, "Oh, you liked that bit? I thought it turned out awesome! I loved that moment, too." without accusations of unprofessionalism. (And it's also true that love doesn't blind one to flaws, as anyone who loves another human being (with any kind of love) should know.)
But the truth is: I wouldn't write these things if sometimes, somewhere, they ahdn't made me squee and rejoice and itch to get them out. If I hadn't laughed and cried over them like I hope someday some readers do.
It seems like a secret, but it isn't. It shouldn't be.
That is all.
