A Report From the Real World (and some notes on writing)
I currently spend my days mostly in the libary. Not just any library, mind you, but a specialised, archaeological library that happens to be situated in the city where I live - and a good thing it is, too, 'cause I wouldn't know where to find the literature for the paper I'm working on. The university library doesn't have it, and neither does the library where I work, because all the literature happens to be Spanish, and we only have German stuff.
It's such a strange library, compared to university libraries. Small, and every piece of furniture in it seems to date from the 1950s. The building is from the same era and has a sober-yet-moderately-prosperous fifties feel to it. To me, it feels as if every day I go half a century back in time in the morning, and forward in time again in the afternoon when I go home.
Also, the library's full of archaeologists. Now, that's hardly surprising in an archaeological library, but I'm used to libraries full of students, and while there are students in this one, too, of course - me, for starters - they don't dominate, or so it seems. Maybe it's just the 1950s respectability that rubs off on them.
And the people who are there, be they young or old, give off an impression of *living* there. Everybody seems to know each other, and the whole place simply seems inhabited. University libraries rarely do.
So, yeah. Interesting experience. Let's see if I can manage to get there earlier tomorrow, so I can get a full nine hours of work in. I really do need the time - reading Spanish takes me about ten times as long as reading German or English does.
***
And, writing:
Obviously, I haven't had the time to write in the last few days (see above), but I think I'm going to allow myself an hour or two now, before I get back to uni work.
You could say that recently I've 'experimented' a bit with constructive criticism. That is to say, I've been experimenting with giving it. (Until relatively recently I felt a bit too insecure of my own skills as a writer to dare to criticise anyone - especially people of a higher general level of skill than me.) As a result, I now have two stories to beta... I see now why people are so reluctant to give constructive criticism: it all too easily degenerates into work! *g* (Yes, those two stories are in German. I wouldn't presume to be able to beta anything in a language not my own. Writing in English is, oddly enough, a lot less challenging than beta reading in English.)
In accordance with the laws of karma I have also *received* constructive criticism, i.e. honest and perceptive beta remarks, which is, on the one hand, simply great. This is the kind of beta I've been hoping for for years, and I expect the story to improve considerably due to it. On the other hand, it is, of course, intensely embarrassing. Seeing everything you did wrong pointed out is a bit like being caught naked in public, and it's all the worse, in this case, because the story has been available to the public in an even worse form than the one I just had beta'd for five and a half years. Which, metaphorically speaking, means that I've been standing around naked in public for five and a half years. And I still am standing around naked in public in places like Seventh Dimension and fanfiction.net, where the old version is still available. *g*
Beyond the 'standing around naked in public' issue, though, I am seriously spooked by just *how* many Really Bad Things I overlooked even in my recent obsessive rewriting sessions. Now, I'm pretty certain I wouldn't make those kinds of mistakes (of characterisation, of internal logic, etc.) in a new story. I think I *am* a better writer now than I was five years ago. But still, that they were invisible to me even today just because at the time of the story's conception, more than five years ago, the story 'made sense in my head', that's a bit disconcerting.
It's such a strange library, compared to university libraries. Small, and every piece of furniture in it seems to date from the 1950s. The building is from the same era and has a sober-yet-moderately-prosperous fifties feel to it. To me, it feels as if every day I go half a century back in time in the morning, and forward in time again in the afternoon when I go home.
Also, the library's full of archaeologists. Now, that's hardly surprising in an archaeological library, but I'm used to libraries full of students, and while there are students in this one, too, of course - me, for starters - they don't dominate, or so it seems. Maybe it's just the 1950s respectability that rubs off on them.
And the people who are there, be they young or old, give off an impression of *living* there. Everybody seems to know each other, and the whole place simply seems inhabited. University libraries rarely do.
So, yeah. Interesting experience. Let's see if I can manage to get there earlier tomorrow, so I can get a full nine hours of work in. I really do need the time - reading Spanish takes me about ten times as long as reading German or English does.
***
And, writing:
Obviously, I haven't had the time to write in the last few days (see above), but I think I'm going to allow myself an hour or two now, before I get back to uni work.
You could say that recently I've 'experimented' a bit with constructive criticism. That is to say, I've been experimenting with giving it. (Until relatively recently I felt a bit too insecure of my own skills as a writer to dare to criticise anyone - especially people of a higher general level of skill than me.) As a result, I now have two stories to beta... I see now why people are so reluctant to give constructive criticism: it all too easily degenerates into work! *g* (Yes, those two stories are in German. I wouldn't presume to be able to beta anything in a language not my own. Writing in English is, oddly enough, a lot less challenging than beta reading in English.)
In accordance with the laws of karma I have also *received* constructive criticism, i.e. honest and perceptive beta remarks, which is, on the one hand, simply great. This is the kind of beta I've been hoping for for years, and I expect the story to improve considerably due to it. On the other hand, it is, of course, intensely embarrassing. Seeing everything you did wrong pointed out is a bit like being caught naked in public, and it's all the worse, in this case, because the story has been available to the public in an even worse form than the one I just had beta'd for five and a half years. Which, metaphorically speaking, means that I've been standing around naked in public for five and a half years. And I still am standing around naked in public in places like Seventh Dimension and fanfiction.net, where the old version is still available. *g*
Beyond the 'standing around naked in public' issue, though, I am seriously spooked by just *how* many Really Bad Things I overlooked even in my recent obsessive rewriting sessions. Now, I'm pretty certain I wouldn't make those kinds of mistakes (of characterisation, of internal logic, etc.) in a new story. I think I *am* a better writer now than I was five years ago. But still, that they were invisible to me even today just because at the time of the story's conception, more than five years ago, the story 'made sense in my head', that's a bit disconcerting.