I have no less than 20 entries queued up, but they're all crap. They're woebegotten crap. They're customer service epic fail crap. They're rambling stories that make no sense crap. I save them, shove them in the vault, and swear that I'll come back in a few hours, and edit them to something vaguely resembling coherency.
I never do. Because I'm a perfectionist, and they're crap.
All the while, the quadzillion other blogs I read keep racing past me, and 50 Shades of Fucking Grey is a bestseller.
I almost maybe totally believe that even the first draft shit I crank out is better than 50 Shades of Fucking Grey.
So. I can either:
Keep convincing myself that I'm a shit writer, and never write anything, ever. (This plan is awesome, insofar as it satisfies my Freeze instinct, which gives me that mild pleasure of base satisfaction by doing a thing that my body is naturally inclined to do when coping with difficulties, ie, nothing. It is largely a shit plan.)
Keep writing, sporadically, and burying everything I write in a poorly tagged, poorly organized slushpile where it will never see the light of day, but, hey, I WROTE things! (This plan is awesome, insofar as it satisfies my Flight instinct, where I see something wrong then scamper away in the other direction, because dealing with things is haaaaaaaard. It is also largely a shit plan.)
Publish ("publish," lol) things anyway, even if they're not perfect, because some content is better than no content? I don't know. I can't bring myself to subscribe to that one, because putting imperfect, poorly constructed entries (like this one! Oh, the irony!) out towards a bunch of internet strangers (web crawling bots) makes me feel like I'm failing. Letting someone (mostly myself) down.
I try to cram this in to last year's mantra of Do One Thing, and my brain overloads. How can I Do One Thing, when that one thing isn't good enough, isn't coherent enough? Of course, if I listened to that part of my brain while I was skating, I'd never do anything, ever.
So I'm publishing this, even though it's self indulgent and whiny, and I'm hoping that something about that action will break the gates, and allow me to start actually pushing out some of the writing that I've been doing.
It can't be worse than 50 Shades of Grey.
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Monday, July 9, 2012
Monday, December 6, 2010
Don't Tell Me Present Me is a Shitty Writer.
Prompt #2 – Writing. What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it?
Most of my writing these days is, or should be, academic.
Things that inhibit my academic progress include, but certainly aren't limited to:
- A preemptive fear of failure
- Impostor syndrome (for those not mired in the hell of academia, Impostor Syndrome is a sinking feeling that one gets when they're immersed in higher education, and are convinced, on a personal, usually baseless level, that they're not actually smart enough or qualified enough to be there or to participate in the academic dialogue. It's fairly common, usually ridiculous, and utterly stupid. Incapacitating nonetheless.)
- A lack of sleep, and consequently motivation
- And, going back to Emerging, my inability to concentrate on one single thing for any length of time.
I'm working on all of these things, but none of them are easily remedied.
Things that inhibit my other writing include
- All of the above
- I just don't wanna.
I tend to sound like a whiny, cranky child when I talk about my writing. I've heard, for years, since elementary school, really, that I'm a great writer, that if I could only adhere to deadlines or some other goal that isn't mine, I'd be a great writer, I could really make something of myself doing it.
The thing is, I've never wanted to make anything of myself with my writing. Or, if I have, it's been lost in the years and years of people telling me that re: writing, I wasn't living up to my potential.
I always figured that writing was a difficult enough profession to break in to (for so many reasons), that it was best left to people that do have that drive, that want to, need to write, to be writers. I've never had that. Writing has always just been a thing that comes out of me, no more or less than anything else I do. I've never needed it to define me, to push me, or whatever it is that "real" writers feel when they're cranking out words.
It's such a crapshoot anyway, and there are so many people who want it more than I do, what's the point in trying to break in to that ratrace? I'd rather pursue the things I care about - even if I feel like I'm no good at them. At least I'm passionate. (Note to self, future post about what happens if it turns out that the last 10 years of studying media theory/communications have been a bust, and I'm actually a shitty market analyst out in the real world.)
Besides, I've never received criticism that, "oh, this is good enough as is, you're good now", it's always been "Future you could do so much better than present you!"
Well, guess what. Future Me doesn't give a shit. (I'll save talking about my construct of Future Me for another post.)
What generally prevents me from writing, now, is the idea that it's not good enough. It's good, but if only I were better, if I paid more attention, if something about Present Me were different, somehow meeting everyone else's expectations and goals would make it all better, would validate what's coming out of me now.
Which makes writing anything of substance, for anyone but myself, painfully difficult - because I don't believe it's good enough.
It's not that I'm afraid of the editing process (I do, however, have a strong aversion to it), I just don't believe that anything I put out is worth anyone else's time. I just don't have that drive.
And it's frustrating - I think, for the most part, that Present Me is isn't a half bad writer. I write like I speak, for the most part, and generally, that gets a pretty good response. I see the schlock that everyone else puts out, and often think "well, fuck that, I could do better." (There's a story there about coming from a family of journalists and Pulitzer winners, but again, I digress)
But then I remember that critical response is always "Not good enough, not good enough, not good enough."
I don't know what I need to eliminate that mental block - I've never been driven to write a novel or to be published, so it's not like that sort of validation is first and foremost in my process. I do have a few ideas that I'd like to see become part of the public dialogue, but I don't know how to get them there.
I guess that's part of why I'm Reverbing, publishing these words in a public forum for the first time in nearly 10 years. Throw it out into the ether and see what happens.
Most of my writing these days is, or should be, academic.
Things that inhibit my academic progress include, but certainly aren't limited to:
- A preemptive fear of failure
- Impostor syndrome (for those not mired in the hell of academia, Impostor Syndrome is a sinking feeling that one gets when they're immersed in higher education, and are convinced, on a personal, usually baseless level, that they're not actually smart enough or qualified enough to be there or to participate in the academic dialogue. It's fairly common, usually ridiculous, and utterly stupid. Incapacitating nonetheless.)
- A lack of sleep, and consequently motivation
- And, going back to Emerging, my inability to concentrate on one single thing for any length of time.
I'm working on all of these things, but none of them are easily remedied.
Things that inhibit my other writing include
- All of the above
- I just don't wanna.
I tend to sound like a whiny, cranky child when I talk about my writing. I've heard, for years, since elementary school, really, that I'm a great writer, that if I could only adhere to deadlines or some other goal that isn't mine, I'd be a great writer, I could really make something of myself doing it.
The thing is, I've never wanted to make anything of myself with my writing. Or, if I have, it's been lost in the years and years of people telling me that re: writing, I wasn't living up to my potential.
I always figured that writing was a difficult enough profession to break in to (for so many reasons), that it was best left to people that do have that drive, that want to, need to write, to be writers. I've never had that. Writing has always just been a thing that comes out of me, no more or less than anything else I do. I've never needed it to define me, to push me, or whatever it is that "real" writers feel when they're cranking out words.
It's such a crapshoot anyway, and there are so many people who want it more than I do, what's the point in trying to break in to that ratrace? I'd rather pursue the things I care about - even if I feel like I'm no good at them. At least I'm passionate. (Note to self, future post about what happens if it turns out that the last 10 years of studying media theory/communications have been a bust, and I'm actually a shitty market analyst out in the real world.)
Besides, I've never received criticism that, "oh, this is good enough as is, you're good now", it's always been "Future you could do so much better than present you!"
Well, guess what. Future Me doesn't give a shit. (I'll save talking about my construct of Future Me for another post.)
What generally prevents me from writing, now, is the idea that it's not good enough. It's good, but if only I were better, if I paid more attention, if something about Present Me were different, somehow meeting everyone else's expectations and goals would make it all better, would validate what's coming out of me now.
Which makes writing anything of substance, for anyone but myself, painfully difficult - because I don't believe it's good enough.
It's not that I'm afraid of the editing process (I do, however, have a strong aversion to it), I just don't believe that anything I put out is worth anyone else's time. I just don't have that drive.
And it's frustrating - I think, for the most part, that Present Me is isn't a half bad writer. I write like I speak, for the most part, and generally, that gets a pretty good response. I see the schlock that everyone else puts out, and often think "well, fuck that, I could do better." (There's a story there about coming from a family of journalists and Pulitzer winners, but again, I digress)
But then I remember that critical response is always "Not good enough, not good enough, not good enough."
I don't know what I need to eliminate that mental block - I've never been driven to write a novel or to be published, so it's not like that sort of validation is first and foremost in my process. I do have a few ideas that I'd like to see become part of the public dialogue, but I don't know how to get them there.
I guess that's part of why I'm Reverbing, publishing these words in a public forum for the first time in nearly 10 years. Throw it out into the ether and see what happens.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Emerging
So a new Twitterbuddy introduced me to the Reverb project - one writing prompt a day for the month of December, reflecting on the previous year.
It annoys me less than NaNoWriMo, and something about it feels like it might be good for me. Idk. We'll see how this goes.
Prompt #1 – One Word. Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?
Emerging.
It's so hokey, even to type it. What sort of new age blather has Boulder conned me in to? But I can't think of a better one.
Everything about this year, for better or for worse, has been about me, about my work in therapy, about figuring out who I am (on a really fundamental, neurochemical level), how I function, and how I can make it better.
In some ways, it feels like I'm waking up and seeing the world for the first time. Seeing possibilities, pathways, ideas and options that, even a year ago, wouldn't have been possible. Things that come easily to people - concentrating on one thing at a time, reaching out to other people, taking chances, being honest with myself - these are things that I've had trouble with, wrestled with, for as long as I've known me. Knowing that they're all a part of a larger chemical reaction going on upstairs doesn't solve any of it, or make it easier, but it gives me a baseline to start from.
This year has been about baby steps. Even things as seemingly simple as emailing a professor to ask for help are still huge, terrifying things that I can barely wrap my brain around - but I'm getting better.
I'm making a concerned effort, as best I can, to do what's best for me, and what enables me to make progress towards the life I want to be living. Hell, even something like defining that life was impossible a few months ago.
But I'm working with a really good therapist, and it's scary, but I'm trying. I'm getting there. Slowly.
If I had to pick a word for next year, it would simply be better. I want to be better than I am now, better than where I am now. More confident in me, in my choices, in my ideals. More comfortable with who I am and what I want, and more able to reach for those things, even when they're scary. I don't want to keep living in fear of doorways and possibilities, I want to be able to try things without the weight of the world and all the fatalism in the universe crushing down on me.
And I guess if I could actually keep my apartment clean, that would be pretty swell, too.
It annoys me less than NaNoWriMo, and something about it feels like it might be good for me. Idk. We'll see how this goes.
Prompt #1 – One Word. Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?
Emerging.
It's so hokey, even to type it. What sort of new age blather has Boulder conned me in to? But I can't think of a better one.
Everything about this year, for better or for worse, has been about me, about my work in therapy, about figuring out who I am (on a really fundamental, neurochemical level), how I function, and how I can make it better.
In some ways, it feels like I'm waking up and seeing the world for the first time. Seeing possibilities, pathways, ideas and options that, even a year ago, wouldn't have been possible. Things that come easily to people - concentrating on one thing at a time, reaching out to other people, taking chances, being honest with myself - these are things that I've had trouble with, wrestled with, for as long as I've known me. Knowing that they're all a part of a larger chemical reaction going on upstairs doesn't solve any of it, or make it easier, but it gives me a baseline to start from.
This year has been about baby steps. Even things as seemingly simple as emailing a professor to ask for help are still huge, terrifying things that I can barely wrap my brain around - but I'm getting better.
I'm making a concerned effort, as best I can, to do what's best for me, and what enables me to make progress towards the life I want to be living. Hell, even something like defining that life was impossible a few months ago.
But I'm working with a really good therapist, and it's scary, but I'm trying. I'm getting there. Slowly.
If I had to pick a word for next year, it would simply be better. I want to be better than I am now, better than where I am now. More confident in me, in my choices, in my ideals. More comfortable with who I am and what I want, and more able to reach for those things, even when they're scary. I don't want to keep living in fear of doorways and possibilities, I want to be able to try things without the weight of the world and all the fatalism in the universe crushing down on me.
And I guess if I could actually keep my apartment clean, that would be pretty swell, too.
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