Narcissus at the lily pond...

[illyria_novia]

So I'm stuck with editing/proofreading/rewriting a paper which, while discussing a fascinating topic, bores me to tears with the author's evident cluelessness as to what writing an academic paper, or just writing, or just English for that matter, is all about.

So what did I do to distract myself from ? I read my old fics. And...

Comments

[jan_u_wine]

in way of a rambling sort of a reply.....after a lot of all sort of different *things* going on in my life, writing more or less deserted me last year. Or maybe it was the other way around. And yet I yearned after it. And my yearning and my fretting took me nowhere, frustration piling atop disconnect and failure time and again.

It's a place easily disturbed, that place in your head where the writing comes from, a place easily clouded by any of a thousand things. Remember when you first began writing LOTR fic? For me, I should say, if I had to describe my state, that it was sunlit. There was nothing else for me but that world. Inevitably (and rightfully) real life came back in. And inevitably the problem of real life had to become the priority. I didn't make a conscious choice for the writing to go: it just did. And I thought I couldn't write any more.

But I can. The difference between now and then is that I'm not in that sunlit place any longer. But the crafting is, in many cases, as good (and better in some cases). I just don't any longer breathe that rarefied air.

I don't often re-read the old stuff. But when I do, mostly I enjoy what I wrote. Some of it I think is good, others are odd or horrendous to me now. But they are all little footprints of myself as a writer.

I don't think it's egotistical to think "ah, that's good", as long as you don't think/say: 'that's the best thing ever written'. Just as your thinking that your stuff is lacking may stop you from going forward effectively, so will the opposite attitude.

We are giant information gathering devices. But we're organic. There are steps to the intricate process.....we ingest all sort of varied information, from staight-out facts to complicated emotions, colours, smells, sights, touches. It goes into the hopper, into that wonderful creative brew that's simmering. And when and where it comes out again, that's a very personal thing.

Having said all that, I'll also say that fear is half the battle here. I remember reading a quote one time that posited: what might be accomplished if every person who tried *knew* they would not fail?

That's IT! That's exactly it. You cannot fail. As opposed to (after a writing attempt goes nowhere): you will always fail. If you once had 'it', you don't anymore (and all the other negative things your mind shoots off in your wobbly direction)

You say your passions have shifted. Sometimes, i find, there is a point of 'rest' between one passion and the next, a time of being fidgety inside (no other way to describe it). But little forays onto that fidgety escalator show promise. No, I don't write like I did even 5 years ago. I'm not the same person. I have moved through time, with all the resulting life bric-a-brac. And time has moved through me, leaving its handprint. It doesn't make sense that I should write the same as I did then. It's a more difficult thing, now. And that is ok

Your writing is lovely. As a reader, I hope you continue. As a writer, I hope, even moreso, that you will.