Insufficiently entertaining
Oct. 29th, 2004 09:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ksmithThat's how I feel when I check my Friends list for whatever reason and find that someone has un-Friended me. I know this is a big place, and folks skip around for whatever reason. But I feel like I'm holding forth at a party only to find people yawning and checking their watches. Thank you thank you. 'preciate it. Words are my life, after all.
Some people can write quite good posts containing litcrit or discussions about writing, drawing out the conversation and keeping it flowing. Beyond the occasional word count or character-based mutter, I don't think you'll find much of that here. I'm not particularly good at criticism, or about explaining how I write or what type of writer I am. I admire the folks who can boil down methods or styles to a few facile sentences--the ability to define succinctly is a gift. I just write--it Happens. Bubbles up in the backbrain and downloads, usually early in the morning. If I had to consciously think out all the things I've written, I don't think I'd have finished one book, much less four. And the fact that I can't readily define what I do or how I do it makes me feel as though it's something outside me, beyond my control, and therefore not really mine. This conflicts quite nicely with the feeling that I'm not really a pro if I can't turn it off and on like a faucet. After all, it's a job, isn't it? Writing, as has been driven into all our heads with 40-lb sledges over the past however many years, is a Business. Product is Consumed by the Marketplace at a rapid clip, and my job is to kick out more product in a timely (more or less) manner.
So here I sit, wrestling with that which isn't really mine, trying to control that which does as it damned well pleases. Talking about crabapples really is simpler.
Some people can write quite good posts containing litcrit or discussions about writing, drawing out the conversation and keeping it flowing. Beyond the occasional word count or character-based mutter, I don't think you'll find much of that here. I'm not particularly good at criticism, or about explaining how I write or what type of writer I am. I admire the folks who can boil down methods or styles to a few facile sentences--the ability to define succinctly is a gift. I just write--it Happens. Bubbles up in the backbrain and downloads, usually early in the morning. If I had to consciously think out all the things I've written, I don't think I'd have finished one book, much less four. And the fact that I can't readily define what I do or how I do it makes me feel as though it's something outside me, beyond my control, and therefore not really mine. This conflicts quite nicely with the feeling that I'm not really a pro if I can't turn it off and on like a faucet. After all, it's a job, isn't it? Writing, as has been driven into all our heads with 40-lb sledges over the past however many years, is a Business. Product is Consumed by the Marketplace at a rapid clip, and my job is to kick out more product in a timely (more or less) manner.
So here I sit, wrestling with that which isn't really mine, trying to control that which does as it damned well pleases. Talking about crabapples really is simpler.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-10-30 06:37 pm (UTC)On Other Topics,
no subject
Date: 2004-10-30 06:42 pm (UTC)I should check out some of these...
On Other Topics, tappu and I are probably going to hit Chicago early afternoon on the 12th. You going to be out there, then, or coming after work?
I'll be taking the day off, and getting in late morning/early afternoon. Need to recheck the schedule to see when my first thing is. I know I have a reading. I could read the J5 first chapter that I wrote at Wiscon. I'd like to see the reactions of folks who are familiar with the books.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-30 11:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-30 06:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 03:07 pm (UTC)Always nursed a crush on David McCallum.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 03:23 pm (UTC)Ah, my unholy obsession with all things UNCLE. *g* I suppose it's harmless, in the long run.
*g* He's got a new series, yanno. "NCIS," where he plays a forensic pathologist...
http://www.cbs.com/primetime/ncis/characters/david_mccallum_char.shtml
It's a terrible show, but Mark Harmon, Paulet Perette, and of course McCallum make it almost watchable. The man's got a portrait of Dick Clark in his attic, I swear.
(Vaughn has a series going in the UK--Hustle--which may be the best thing currently on television in the English language.)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/hustle/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2003/09_september/16/hustle_vaughn.shtml
Just brilliant--stylish and a little bit edgy and thoughtful series about a band of modern-day Merry Men.
There's also a livejournal community --