(Untitled)

[cleolinda]

I can't stop listening to the V for Vendetta soundtrack at this point, which makes this the second Dario Marianelli score in a row that I've gotten hooked on. I'm even to the point in my predictably cyclical obsessions where I would like to listen to something else, maybe some nice Garbage or at least something with guitars and maybe even some

Comments

[tifaria]

My painting professor said something to me last semester that I think is very valuable advice, and while I don't remember the exact wording, it was basically this: "Whatever your critics tell you to stop doing, do a thousand more of." He was referring to painting, of course, but I think this can apply to writing as well. He was jumped on by critics for years to stop his landscape painting (which are not traditional landscapes, but are rather haunting and stylized), stop oil painting, and to return to the abstract acrylic paintings he began with. But you know what? He kept oil painting, and he kept at it to the point where he now makes up to thirty thousand dollars a painting and laughs at the people who told him to stop all those years ago.

So keep writing! :) You're a talented, capable writer and nothing is going to change that.

[cleolinda]

Huh... that's completely counterintuitive and yet... strangely empowering.

(Aww, thanks.)

[lotusbiosm]

Cleo, can we trade problems? You go on too long (you say, I don't believe you), I don't go on long enough. It's so hard for me to hit page miminums.
And I know exactly how you feel about negative comments. I can have compliments for weeks, but one criticism, and boom, I'm done. Even if it's completely non-personal and true.
And my mother has taught for onver 30 years. Every time she gets negative feedback on course reviews (even when they're clearly from terrible students who would give a bad review to anyone who wanted them to learn anything), she feels bad.
I wish I knew how not to do it...

[cleolinda]

Well, a lot of times in papers I don't go long enough, because I manage to say exactly what I want to say and I'm done... three pages early. I think what contributes to my going overlong, though, is a very... conversational voice? Because it lends itself to rambling, basically.

[lotusbiosm]

Yeah, I get that. If I could write papers in LJ-style, I'd be good to go. Though I think LJ is bad for my formal academic writing.
And I hate feeling like I'm rambling and babbling and being unecessarily verbose because I'm trying to make a page minimum. If I've said what needs saying, isn't that what matters?
I should be working on a paper right now...

[highlystrung]

Everyone else has left these really deep comments and I want to leave a deep comment I really do but all that's going through my head is damn I want to read V/15m. (And I know I've read the comic but it's not the same.)

As someone who always wants deep, detailed, thought out feedback, and feels miserable when I get a 'it's not your best work' (which is both a completely valueless statement and a neat summation of modern perceptions of the art world) I can only say I share the trauma. You've got a healthy grip of it though. And I will say, it's funny how even the greatest sense of bathos is overcome by the drive to create.

Oh. And the graphic? Priceless. ^^

[cleolinda]

Hee, thanks. If you can get out and see the movie, do--just try to go easy on it, since you *have* read the comic already. I haven't read the comic yet (on purpose, for that reason), and I really enjoyed it.

[highlystrung]

*grins* S'okay. ^^

I'm trying to wrangle time/money to go see it (although I may have to come down to the tough decision between that and paintballing. *gasp!*) and I'm rather counting on my whole 'it'll be crap and I'll hate it' instinct to boost my opinion of it. (Hey, it worked for Van Helsing!)

I didn't really think about the whole comic vs. movie thing when I read it, y'see. ^^ A friend had it, I had to read it - and, well, it left me going *jawdrop* O.M.G. It is that good. I mean, sure, Neil Gaiman, you so fine baby, but Alan Moore? Is in a whole. Other. League.

Which is why I know I've screwed myself for the movie. ^^

But hey, I can only do as you say! I will try to be kind *repeats desperately: It's a completely different story, it's a completely different story*

(Although can I just say? The soundtrack titles keep giving me hope. Which is really, really bad. ^^)

[cleolinda]

Yeah, "completely different story" is a good mantra. Because then you'll be pleased by the things that they really did keep, and do well (the Valerie sequence is just amazing, and that *is* a part I got to read first), but the whole "Evey, I love you and you make me want to be a man" stuff will go down easier. (I am serious--prepare yourself.)

[kookaburra1701]

Here's something I think you'd enjoy- Google's AFD joke: http://www.google.com/romance/index.html

[cleolinda]

I saw that this morning! The tour is PRICELESS.

[kvschwartz]

*hugs*

It's OK to feel wounded. It helps to be tough-skinned if you're going into the arts, but NOT being tough-skinned doesn't make you any LESS of a writer.

Feel better!

[cleolinda]

Heh, thanks. I am remarkably thin-skinned--well, actually, selectively thin-skinned, because if I'm in the drafting/rewriting phase, I handle criticism pretty well. I guess, ultimately, the comments that sting the most are the ones that address the things we're insecure about, which is why "UR A FAG" is nastier but doesn't bother me, because it's totally nonsensical, but "This is overlong and barely funny" does.