Insufficiently entertaining

[ksmith]

That'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.

Comments

[msagara.livejournal.com]

You always use them <g>. You're probably better about using them than I am; I always -use- them, but I probably put them in on the wrong side of length.

Back on GEnie, my topic was kind of quiet. I adored GEnie, and I added to other discussions -- but I just didn't feel I had much of interest to say on my own :/. I didn't want to talk about my personal life -- which would probably have bored everyone -- and I didn't know what to say about writing life, either. So I was mostly quiet in my topic. I talked a lot in Alis Rasmussen's topic, though, and in one or two others, and still felt connected to the community that way -- but GEnie didn't have a "friends" list. You could only tell who was reading by who was posting, which is to say, lurking was easier, and you couldn't tell when people stopped.

I think it's a better approach in some ways.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

You could only tell who was reading by who was posting, which is to say, lurking was easier, and you couldn't tell when people stopped.

I think it's a better approach in some ways.

It's like SFFNet newsgroups--you can't tell who's lurking there, either.

I think non-LJers read my journal on the website, though. I receive the occasional anonymous comment.