Writing Challenge Completed!
While it is shameful that I have not written in this LJ for the entire month of June, I think I have a decent excuse: the writing challenge.
I have just submitted my last piece for the challenge, and I am honestly too mentally exhausted to even commit to this entry. But I will just write down my thoughts briefly.
1. Writing is fucking hard work.
2. Writing something new and interesting every day is fucking hard work.
3. Sometimes - especially towards the end of the challenge - I really didn't feel like writing.
4. On days when I didn't feel like writing, forcing myself to write felt worse than not writing.
5. But I think, in the end, writing something is always better than writing nothing. Because even if it is tough to distance myself from what I have written, having something to work with is easier than starting from scratch. And if I need to unsee the shit that I have written, I can simply press the 'enter' space multiple times and provide that physical distance on the page.
6. I love writing, even when it's shit and painful.
7. Trying to write two things at once - the on-going Daredevil story which hasn't ended and is about 240 pages long right now, and the daily new piece of fiction - is a very, very bad idea. By the time I'm done with one, I have nothing left for the other. And because I'm really gunning to finish the Daredevil fanfic - I think two chapters will be enough to wrap it up - the quality of my work for the writing challenge has suffered a lot. So, lesson learned: only do one creative piece of writing at a time, unless I need a break from whatever it is I'm working on. But it has to be necessary and voluntary, not externally imposed.
8. I have been writing every single day since I started writing the fanfic in the beginning of April. This is the most intense and consistent commitment to an endeavour that I have made in at least the past 10 years of my life.
9. I am so committed that Etienne and I only went out for drinks last night after I've finished the brief.
10. Indeed, I would rather not see friends if it means that it takes time away from writing.
11. Nothing gives me more joy and satisfaction than writing - even when I'm writing crap.
12. And because I frequently write crap, nothing brings me the kind of torture that bad writing brings to me than, well, bad writing. It is a self-effacing torture, the sort that causes self-flagellation because I want to be so much better, but I can't seem to actually grasp where I am reaching. And it hurts because it is deeply personal, and because I care.
13. I have wasted at least the last decade of my life by not writing. It is time to rectify this mistake.
14. I am a writer. That is all.
I have just submitted my last piece for the challenge, and I am honestly too mentally exhausted to even commit to this entry. But I will just write down my thoughts briefly.
1. Writing is fucking hard work.
2. Writing something new and interesting every day is fucking hard work.
3. Sometimes - especially towards the end of the challenge - I really didn't feel like writing.
4. On days when I didn't feel like writing, forcing myself to write felt worse than not writing.
5. But I think, in the end, writing something is always better than writing nothing. Because even if it is tough to distance myself from what I have written, having something to work with is easier than starting from scratch. And if I need to unsee the shit that I have written, I can simply press the 'enter' space multiple times and provide that physical distance on the page.
6. I love writing, even when it's shit and painful.
7. Trying to write two things at once - the on-going Daredevil story which hasn't ended and is about 240 pages long right now, and the daily new piece of fiction - is a very, very bad idea. By the time I'm done with one, I have nothing left for the other. And because I'm really gunning to finish the Daredevil fanfic - I think two chapters will be enough to wrap it up - the quality of my work for the writing challenge has suffered a lot. So, lesson learned: only do one creative piece of writing at a time, unless I need a break from whatever it is I'm working on. But it has to be necessary and voluntary, not externally imposed.
8. I have been writing every single day since I started writing the fanfic in the beginning of April. This is the most intense and consistent commitment to an endeavour that I have made in at least the past 10 years of my life.
9. I am so committed that Etienne and I only went out for drinks last night after I've finished the brief.
10. Indeed, I would rather not see friends if it means that it takes time away from writing.
11. Nothing gives me more joy and satisfaction than writing - even when I'm writing crap.
12. And because I frequently write crap, nothing brings me the kind of torture that bad writing brings to me than, well, bad writing. It is a self-effacing torture, the sort that causes self-flagellation because I want to be so much better, but I can't seem to actually grasp where I am reaching. And it hurts because it is deeply personal, and because I care.
13. I have wasted at least the last decade of my life by not writing. It is time to rectify this mistake.
14. I am a writer. That is all.