An actual blog post.
Okay. So.
I opened a document to start a new story (in which vampires are normal and humans are the myth. I'm working on it.), and I couldn't face the whiteness. So I opened episode 8 and corrected the grammar there, and then. Then. I looked down.
There, from under the L key-dust. I saw that.
So after about twenty minutes of tweezing clumps of cat hair and dust and detritus from my keyboard, I stopped to consider that I might have a small problem.
Writer's block.
It's not like I haven't had it before, the erectile dysfunction of the literary world (can you tell how desperate I was to make that joke?), but this comes at a time when I am teeming with ideas. I have about a dozen scenes in the season 4 that I'd love to put down. I have about thirty short stories in various stages of development. I have four stories that I should edit and resubmit.
I'm going to have to drop out of the tw genfic fest. I know it's not going to be done. It's not even started. It's planned. I could start it and get myself rolling, but I can think of so many other things that are more important, like the stories for money. I can't make myself work on fanfic because I think I have to get more stories done so I can sell them.
I have to relax.
Here's how bad it is: I get Poets and Writer's Magazine, and I use the back to mine for submissions, and I haven't opened the last 2 (it's every other month, so that should tell you something) because the Jan/Feb issue is titled 'The Inspiration Issue'. Look at that cover and tell me that's not intimidating. Or it could just be me.
It's not a new thing that I don't like to listen to other people talk about their writing. And I don't mean in a "this is my plot" way. That's okay. I don't like to listen to meta about writing. I don't care about why someone writes, or how they do it, or what drives them. Because it makes me think about what drives me, and I don't care about that either. Everyone seems more together than me. Everyone seems to think this is…important enough to talk about (I think I'm doing that now). All I know is that the more I think about my process, the worse my fic is received, the less it's liked, so I don't LIKE to think about it. So, there.
Also: everyone I know is writing a book. One of them sold their book. Others are submitting theirs. I don't even have a short story to send anywhere. Every time I try to sit down and edit, I think, "God, what's the point, editing isn't going to make it better." /whine (If you are one of those people reading this, I sincerely wish you nothing but the best, really, I do.)
Anyway, I am blocked. I even have an idea for a two-column poem about a man licking the print advert for gum in the subway car. See? Ideas. Still. Who's going to buy/print that shit? My gum poem? Fuck that shit.
Part of it is this doubt that I know where to submit my stuff. I don't know. It's not like the shit I read in the samples, and I can't find a place that has stuff like mine. And that bothers me, or something. Or maybe I think it's interesting. I dunno. I just have to find the place.
I feel better just writing all this.
Fuck all that. Okay. Coconut Man, Moonheads, and P.
Next on Amanda blogs: I have discovered how to exercise, and nyah nyah nyah, you bastards. Also, Cashmere Mafia was the worst trainwreck of a show I have watched since The L Word, but I couldn't stop watching.
I opened a document to start a new story (in which vampires are normal and humans are the myth. I'm working on it.), and I couldn't face the whiteness. So I opened episode 8 and corrected the grammar there, and then. Then. I looked down.
There, from under the L key-dust. I saw that.
So after about twenty minutes of tweezing clumps of cat hair and dust and detritus from my keyboard, I stopped to consider that I might have a small problem.
Writer's block.
It's not like I haven't had it before, the erectile dysfunction of the literary world (can you tell how desperate I was to make that joke?), but this comes at a time when I am teeming with ideas. I have about a dozen scenes in the season 4 that I'd love to put down. I have about thirty short stories in various stages of development. I have four stories that I should edit and resubmit.
I'm going to have to drop out of the tw genfic fest. I know it's not going to be done. It's not even started. It's planned. I could start it and get myself rolling, but I can think of so many other things that are more important, like the stories for money. I can't make myself work on fanfic because I think I have to get more stories done so I can sell them.
I have to relax.
Here's how bad it is: I get Poets and Writer's Magazine, and I use the back to mine for submissions, and I haven't opened the last 2 (it's every other month, so that should tell you something) because the Jan/Feb issue is titled 'The Inspiration Issue'. Look at that cover and tell me that's not intimidating. Or it could just be me.
It's not a new thing that I don't like to listen to other people talk about their writing. And I don't mean in a "this is my plot" way. That's okay. I don't like to listen to meta about writing. I don't care about why someone writes, or how they do it, or what drives them. Because it makes me think about what drives me, and I don't care about that either. Everyone seems more together than me. Everyone seems to think this is…important enough to talk about (I think I'm doing that now). All I know is that the more I think about my process, the worse my fic is received, the less it's liked, so I don't LIKE to think about it. So, there.
Also: everyone I know is writing a book. One of them sold their book. Others are submitting theirs. I don't even have a short story to send anywhere. Every time I try to sit down and edit, I think, "God, what's the point, editing isn't going to make it better." /whine (If you are one of those people reading this, I sincerely wish you nothing but the best, really, I do.)
Anyway, I am blocked. I even have an idea for a two-column poem about a man licking the print advert for gum in the subway car. See? Ideas. Still. Who's going to buy/print that shit? My gum poem? Fuck that shit.
Part of it is this doubt that I know where to submit my stuff. I don't know. It's not like the shit I read in the samples, and I can't find a place that has stuff like mine. And that bothers me, or something. Or maybe I think it's interesting. I dunno. I just have to find the place.
I feel better just writing all this.
Fuck all that. Okay. Coconut Man, Moonheads, and P.
Click to view
Next on Amanda blogs: I have discovered how to exercise, and nyah nyah nyah, you bastards. Also, Cashmere Mafia was the worst trainwreck of a show I have watched since The L Word, but I couldn't stop watching.