The knitting has taken a back seat, as have most everything else. I've sat myself at my desk for the past week and not written anything worth keeping save my free writes. As hard as I push, less and less comes. It's not a 'block' as much as self pressure -- I've been here soooooo many times. Good times come and go, as will the bad. And, thankfully, the pages have managed to break through my self imposed cave in.
There is no other way to describe it as that. Something from heart to pen is out, clogged, restricted to all but 'why me's. Which is bullshit to begin with. I would rather have a year of bad days as a writer than one day scrubbing toilets at a theme park, the corner of which only those with the trots and upside down guts seem to use. I'll take my knocks and bang my head on my desk any day over that. Over many real jobs, actually. Anything to keep this what I do and what I take pleasure in passing on.
That is why I write and for no other reason. It is what I do, who I am, and what I wish to leave the world -- something worth reading and journey they would not otherwise have to take. So, yes, bad days come, but they also go. Better days are coming. I can feel it just as I feel the weight of the lows not yet passed. But, as always, they will.
What I slaved over, tried to improve (knowing it did not work, but still pushed it to carry more weight than it was worth), was rewound to another part I worked 3 weeks to eek out. Not all perspectives are easy. And that came out better than what I wore my fingers and mind down to create. That's why pencils have erasers, I guess.
Not to be overlooked, the piece is moving along -- no matter how I wanted it to go, it is going the way it needs to go. Posing the characters, playing them rather than allowing them to live their lives, the story will not be real. Let alone be worth telling or reading. The characters are the life blood. It is their story, not mine. Forcing that the other way is the death of a good tale. As a writer, I can't afford to forget that, for the characters' sake. They depend on me to tell their story and I owe it to them to do so.
The writer is not god, they are the characters' route to expression.
I posted part of my work for a group (of other writers) to see. At first, I had a question of reader's point of view. Opinions posted in reply, my work began. I do not need to hear how to write. If I can't do that on my own, I'm in the wrong field. But, this is what a later comer felt compelled to 'school' me on: how to write, how not to write, how 'all the great writers do it.'
I get some people, unsure of their own ability, seeking to learn that. But, there are books on that subject. If you're looking for how to's, read. Write. Practice.
On my post, I stated my slump, how the MC came off the page -- or didn't -- and requested opinions on how the MC was seen. I left the rest for my own work. If there are issues in style, execution, grammar, that's my territory, not that of another writer. Yet, that did not stop them from posting nearly two pages of how to's and what I was doing wrong (gotta love it, everyone's a specialist!). For fun, I googled them, to see who they were to attack how I work. If they were published, I think I would have shit myself. I've never seen another published writer attacks someone's process. If it works for them, good!
Anyway, so steamed on this, I'm scattered once more.... What a shame.
What ticked me off, more than the no-nos and 'they said's and even more than the guess on the genre (which I stated in every post as Lit. Fic./Drama) was the comparison to another's work (a cartoon). HAHAHA Wasn't even close to the same idea. Mine is an inner journey, getting over a loss -- not a true love fairy tale. I'm at least three genres over and 30 years up in demographic. Wow. Seriously?
Humor aside, my work is not my own? I cannot create a work without having been handed something first? The years I've spent fleshing out the tedious, intricate details of every aspect (it is not only deeply steeped in emotions, but has needed nine years of research -- medical and technical) are all for nothing because you think it all has to be done before? No one can think separately from someone else?
Imitation is the highest form of flattery, only if it is the aim. So, don't pull that shit with me! My work is my own. It is the life of the characters that come my way, looking for a door to the page, for their story to be told. Comparing it to another's work is a slap in the face off all I've striven for to get my characters' the purest form of their tale. My work is for them.
I've worked too hard for my characters to have their own lives to have it ripped away like that. On the forum, I laughed them off. They'll wash out soon enough. If not, then I hope they learn how it really is to be a writer, the conveyor of tales. They come from the deepest parts and from so far beyond our beings.
Plot lines are easy to come by, events, even easier, but the characters that make them are of their own making. So, do not cast them aside as make believe, or passing, random thoughts -- those are the scenarios. Not the people in them. Each are unique and should be treated as such.
When a character takes their full depth, to the point of flesh and blood on the page, it is magic. Pure. And it is a writer's driving force.
I hope they can learn that. Before they crash and burn.
Damn, wasn't going to post about that, but guess it was long time coming. Again, Tech N9ne's on repeat. The bad days will come and go, they always do. They've no ground to stay. I won't let them.
Current Track: 219 pages/59,804 words
Side Note: Uncle's been coming around. Not felt him in years. I know I've never met him, officially, but we've talked before. Being open has allowed the visits. It is nice to have him around. He was a writer, too, in life and has been great company.
We do not 'talk' like we used to, but I know he is here. I've looked up to see him standing in my office -- right there in the middle of the room. I've also heard him talking. Today, however, as well as yesterday morn before I turned in after the night, I've felt a boost of encouragement. As if there was a pat on the back to say the hard times were going to prove temporary.
Gods, needed that yesterday. I stopped what I was doing (anything but writing apparently) and looked to the empty chair I keep in the office for the other desk (desktop and printer have it). He smiled and I started to laugh. Yeah, one of those days. Spent a bit tossing back shop about stories and how sometimes the words come and sometimes they don't.
He gets it.
And I've missed him.
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