On Writing and Reviews
(this has come up - again - in a specific fandom, and I just needed to jot something down. Ignore it as needed.)
From as far back as I can remember, I wanted to be a writer when I grew up. Or, as I evidently said it (remember I was British, then) aut-orh. (Yes, I was an odd child.)
Writing and reading make up large portions of my life. It's one of those things that I don't even think about anymore, they're just lumped in there with eating and drinking and sleeping and showering. I like to write. More than that, it feels like it's necessary for me to write, like the ideas would overwhelm my mind if I left them cramped up in their closets and dusty corners and tried to lock them away.
I tell you this, because I need you to know where I'm coming from. I write. It's the only thing that I know to be constant in my life. Where I want to live, who I want to be with, if my family and friends will visit or if I'm imagining cutting all ties and disappearing into the night, the only thing I know for sure is that I'll be writing while I'm doing it.
I don't write for reviews.
If I wrote for reviews, I certainly wouldn't be writing Alan/Ian Jurassic Park slash. Who's reading that?
HOWEVER.
I could just as easily write fic and leave it to gather dust on my hard drive. I could fill up notebooks with fic (and I have, with badfic) and leave them stuffed into drawers. Instead, I post it online, hoping that maybe someone will like it, maybe someone will appreciate it, maybe it will have an effect on someone, or maybe just that it will allow someone a decent way to pass a few minutes of time.
Writing - and this is my opinion, and solely my opinion - is more than just committing words to a paper. When I write, I feel that in some ways I am baring myself to the world (or perhaps just to the two people who wander by and read it). My interpretations of the characters, my choice of words and themes, they all reflect on me, sketch out myself in ways I don't always want to admit. Just like theater, just like being on stage felt emotionally baring even as I pretended to be someone else, writing is like that.
So when I put something out into the world, and there is silence - silence, and I know someone is out there, that's unnerving. It's not a good feeling. It's not terrible, it's not going to stop me from writing, but am I less inclined to share my work, to share myself if I am greeted by silence? Perhaps this makes me petty or needy or clingy, but yes, yes of course it does.
I would rather have a sneer, a metaphorical slap in the face, than silence.
So yes. I like reviews. Long or short, positive or negative, critical or incoherent, I appreciate the fact that anyone would take the time out to jot down anything to let me know that I haven't risked myself for nothing.
I just find it really unfair when people take a critical point of view of this - that if someone like reviews they must be a glory hound, etc. It makes me wonder if they've ever written something they cared about, that meant something to them, and had it be discarded as if unimportant.
I most certainly have. I think, at one time or another, most people have. I'm not going to lie, it hurts.
Anyway, that's my two cents on the subject. Sorry for the utter rambling this dissolved into at some point. Hugs and kisses all that. ;)
From as far back as I can remember, I wanted to be a writer when I grew up. Or, as I evidently said it (remember I was British, then) aut-orh. (Yes, I was an odd child.)
Writing and reading make up large portions of my life. It's one of those things that I don't even think about anymore, they're just lumped in there with eating and drinking and sleeping and showering. I like to write. More than that, it feels like it's necessary for me to write, like the ideas would overwhelm my mind if I left them cramped up in their closets and dusty corners and tried to lock them away.
I tell you this, because I need you to know where I'm coming from. I write. It's the only thing that I know to be constant in my life. Where I want to live, who I want to be with, if my family and friends will visit or if I'm imagining cutting all ties and disappearing into the night, the only thing I know for sure is that I'll be writing while I'm doing it.
I don't write for reviews.
If I wrote for reviews, I certainly wouldn't be writing Alan/Ian Jurassic Park slash. Who's reading that?
HOWEVER.
I could just as easily write fic and leave it to gather dust on my hard drive. I could fill up notebooks with fic (and I have, with badfic) and leave them stuffed into drawers. Instead, I post it online, hoping that maybe someone will like it, maybe someone will appreciate it, maybe it will have an effect on someone, or maybe just that it will allow someone a decent way to pass a few minutes of time.
Writing - and this is my opinion, and solely my opinion - is more than just committing words to a paper. When I write, I feel that in some ways I am baring myself to the world (or perhaps just to the two people who wander by and read it). My interpretations of the characters, my choice of words and themes, they all reflect on me, sketch out myself in ways I don't always want to admit. Just like theater, just like being on stage felt emotionally baring even as I pretended to be someone else, writing is like that.
So when I put something out into the world, and there is silence - silence, and I know someone is out there, that's unnerving. It's not a good feeling. It's not terrible, it's not going to stop me from writing, but am I less inclined to share my work, to share myself if I am greeted by silence? Perhaps this makes me petty or needy or clingy, but yes, yes of course it does.
I would rather have a sneer, a metaphorical slap in the face, than silence.
So yes. I like reviews. Long or short, positive or negative, critical or incoherent, I appreciate the fact that anyone would take the time out to jot down anything to let me know that I haven't risked myself for nothing.
I just find it really unfair when people take a critical point of view of this - that if someone like reviews they must be a glory hound, etc. It makes me wonder if they've ever written something they cared about, that meant something to them, and had it be discarded as if unimportant.
I most certainly have. I think, at one time or another, most people have. I'm not going to lie, it hurts.
Anyway, that's my two cents on the subject. Sorry for the utter rambling this dissolved into at some point. Hugs and kisses all that. ;)