Rambling randomness
I often tell myself that I'm going to come around to livejournal more often. Then the real world strikes...
I stopped and realized at one point today that I hadn't posted anything in the blog part of the world in some time. I haven't even looked at my journal but once in the last month.
So, what's made me stop here? I don't know. Different things that have been on my mind of late.
Is it still your voice when you journal if you don't say it the same way you would have if you ad spoken it aloud for someone to hear in conversations? Just given that I've got no issues with swearing in almost any setting, and it's part of my regular speech (the fact that, from what I understand, my daughters have picked it up is something that I sorta regret, but too late now), but it's such a rare thing for me to say any "bad" words here. I imagine that it's not a lack of being true to me, but sensitive to my potential audience and their opinions of me. Not that because I use those words does that make me a bad person, but... I dunno, my thing.
Like when I desperately needed some ears to bend (and I still have those days) just to get the crap out of my head about Dad. I was often referred to my good pastor. Now, Lloyd is my friend, and I love him, but, to me, that was just a bit too heavy to lay on him, all the negative things that were rolling about in my head. Not that he couldn't take it, because I got the impression from the beginning that he's someone that would be content to just listen and allow me to be as venomous, rude and nasty as I need to be, but because I don't want to be that person with him. All the times I thought about talking to him, just made things lighter on their own. How like the man he strives to emulate that Lloyd is in that respect. But I digress...
Ah, the audience. I've written some things and posted them to fictionpress, and generally refused to temper what I wrote there. So, some member of my percieved audience could read one of my pieces of fiction, and there could be *gasp* badness. In the series I wrote called 'One Kiss' there's teenage romance, protrayed in, what I think, is a very realistic sense. The flirting, uncertainty, and arrogance of youth is captured through the first three stories I wrote for it. And then there's the piece that, while not my favorite amongst the four, is the one I'm most proud of, and that's Pretty in Pink. Well, if you've read that one, then you know that there's something that twists in the end, and tends to twist the knickers of the more uptight folk. Do I still talk about it? Well, yeah, I'm proud of what I did there, and the reviews that I've recieved for it are generally glowy. And who doesn't like a glowing review of something they worked hard at and struggled with in various stages.
Which makes me wonder. Is it as interesting without its twist? Do I have to write in a twist to keep the readers coming back? I read through my reviews from time to time, trying to figure out what worked and what didn't. The only thing I can find that didn't (on any kind of regular basis) are minor editing mistakes.
So, I find myself back with a blank page before me, writing a 'sequal' to My Mistake. Why that one and not First Kiss or the aforementioned Pretty in Pink? Well, it was the one that got the most attention prior to PiP due to its own content. Why does he stoop to the level that he does? Is she really as bad as she seems? She has led to some discussion with my workmates about 'loose women,' which generally came to the conclusion that sluts are people, too, even as teens. But what about him? Isn't he just as bad for allowing her to bring him to that level?
"No," seems to be the common answer there. He's just doing what he's supposed to do. Fending off the bad little good girl, and trying to point her in the right direction (which gets him called an asshole). What happens, though, when he embraces the wrongness of the deed? Yeah, in the back of your mind, you know that what you're doing is wrong, but you're going to go ahead and do it anyway, and to hell with the consequences?
That's where I have him going now. Fully accepting (eventually) that what he's doing is wrong, and yet going with it. I'm in the process of hammering out some detail within, but I wonder... how far should I push it? Clearly there's a boundary that's not meant to be crossed (and it's pretty much laid out in the Terms of Use for fiction press), but how close to that should I get? Does he take full advantage of all that she offers, and does she shy away when she sees what she's provoked? Should I allow, within my writing the adage "God made men with two heads and only enough blood to power one at a time" to come true?
I guess in my roundabout way, I'm asking... does anyone have any input for me? Stories, life or otherwise?
I stopped and realized at one point today that I hadn't posted anything in the blog part of the world in some time. I haven't even looked at my journal but once in the last month.
So, what's made me stop here? I don't know. Different things that have been on my mind of late.
Is it still your voice when you journal if you don't say it the same way you would have if you ad spoken it aloud for someone to hear in conversations? Just given that I've got no issues with swearing in almost any setting, and it's part of my regular speech (the fact that, from what I understand, my daughters have picked it up is something that I sorta regret, but too late now), but it's such a rare thing for me to say any "bad" words here. I imagine that it's not a lack of being true to me, but sensitive to my potential audience and their opinions of me. Not that because I use those words does that make me a bad person, but... I dunno, my thing.
Like when I desperately needed some ears to bend (and I still have those days) just to get the crap out of my head about Dad. I was often referred to my good pastor. Now, Lloyd is my friend, and I love him, but, to me, that was just a bit too heavy to lay on him, all the negative things that were rolling about in my head. Not that he couldn't take it, because I got the impression from the beginning that he's someone that would be content to just listen and allow me to be as venomous, rude and nasty as I need to be, but because I don't want to be that person with him. All the times I thought about talking to him, just made things lighter on their own. How like the man he strives to emulate that Lloyd is in that respect. But I digress...
Ah, the audience. I've written some things and posted them to fictionpress, and generally refused to temper what I wrote there. So, some member of my percieved audience could read one of my pieces of fiction, and there could be *gasp* badness. In the series I wrote called 'One Kiss' there's teenage romance, protrayed in, what I think, is a very realistic sense. The flirting, uncertainty, and arrogance of youth is captured through the first three stories I wrote for it. And then there's the piece that, while not my favorite amongst the four, is the one I'm most proud of, and that's Pretty in Pink. Well, if you've read that one, then you know that there's something that twists in the end, and tends to twist the knickers of the more uptight folk. Do I still talk about it? Well, yeah, I'm proud of what I did there, and the reviews that I've recieved for it are generally glowy. And who doesn't like a glowing review of something they worked hard at and struggled with in various stages.
Which makes me wonder. Is it as interesting without its twist? Do I have to write in a twist to keep the readers coming back? I read through my reviews from time to time, trying to figure out what worked and what didn't. The only thing I can find that didn't (on any kind of regular basis) are minor editing mistakes.
So, I find myself back with a blank page before me, writing a 'sequal' to My Mistake. Why that one and not First Kiss or the aforementioned Pretty in Pink? Well, it was the one that got the most attention prior to PiP due to its own content. Why does he stoop to the level that he does? Is she really as bad as she seems? She has led to some discussion with my workmates about 'loose women,' which generally came to the conclusion that sluts are people, too, even as teens. But what about him? Isn't he just as bad for allowing her to bring him to that level?
"No," seems to be the common answer there. He's just doing what he's supposed to do. Fending off the bad little good girl, and trying to point her in the right direction (which gets him called an asshole). What happens, though, when he embraces the wrongness of the deed? Yeah, in the back of your mind, you know that what you're doing is wrong, but you're going to go ahead and do it anyway, and to hell with the consequences?
That's where I have him going now. Fully accepting (eventually) that what he's doing is wrong, and yet going with it. I'm in the process of hammering out some detail within, but I wonder... how far should I push it? Clearly there's a boundary that's not meant to be crossed (and it's pretty much laid out in the Terms of Use for fiction press), but how close to that should I get? Does he take full advantage of all that she offers, and does she shy away when she sees what she's provoked? Should I allow, within my writing the adage "God made men with two heads and only enough blood to power one at a time" to come true?
I guess in my roundabout way, I'm asking... does anyone have any input for me? Stories, life or otherwise?