(no subject)

[seraphcelene]

I wish that I could remember how to write.

I wish that I could recall the business of putting pen to paper and blindly watching the ink unravel itself across a surface of textured napkin and smooth paper, squished onto envelopes and yellow post-it notes. Pieces of me fragmented and scattered with hubristic abandon around the house. Crammed into notebooks, stuck to dresser drawers and the doors of cabinets.

Even if I gather them up, now they are just noise in my hands, pre-celluloid images without reference. Tattered, beggared beginnings and a few corners without a story.

Comments

[lostakasha.livejournal.com]

You don't need to remember how to write. You just need to do something impossible, which would be to read your scraps and pieces as a blind stranger would.

Or, a Zack Addy once said, "apparently, you need someone to recite your job description in a deep, African-American tone."

:)

[seraphcelene]

Or, a Zack Addy once said, "apparently, you need someone to recite your job description in a deep, African-American tone."

ROTFL!! I love that!!

*sigh*

I WISH that we had that ability: to see ourselves and the things we do from someone else's perspective entirely, without expectation or bias. That would be awesome. To be able to do that for just one day.

[lostakasha.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't it just be awesome?

It's so difficult for writers to comfort each other, I think. It would certainly be nice (and true) for *me* to say that even when you're stuck and suffering you express that empty pain so beautifully, but it doesn't actually help you at all.

I got nothin'. No super-vision. Not even a creamy chicken casserole or a bottle of Grey Goose. But if I did, I'd share it with you.

[seraphcelene]

It's odd ... and vindicating and utterly flattering to be appreciated by writers. It does provide comfort, but at the same time, because we can't ever get out of our own heads it's still so much sound and fury. At least at those low points where writing feels like an especially difficult chore. It's crazy how much our sense of worth (for anything) is this crazy mix of what we think and what others think. I totally respect you as a writer and having your feedback is amazing, but when I'm facing this unrelenting writer's block there doesn't seem to be anything that anyone can say to make me feel better.

So. Stupid. Really.

But thank you!! I'd take your creamy chicken casserole or Grey Goose, if you had it and be glad to share the meal. :)

[my_daroga]

I feel like I feel similar, except... I also feel I haven't really tried.

[seraphcelene]

You're working towards getting there. I remember that feeling from grad school when I had all this information and couldn't decide where to start writing. It feels remarkably similar to writer's block. I'm cheering you and tkp on!! You WILL get there!

[my_daroga]

Aww, thanks. I wish I wrote more fiction, too. Even fanfiction. I feel like I've really lost that. Then again, I've piled stuff on my life pretty thick right now.

I'm sorry you're going through what you are. I wish I could help.

[seraphcelene]

I had a really, really great reply and it didn't post because I'm at work and technically LJ is blocked! SHIT!!!!!!

Anyway, to sum it all up. I go through periods where I WANT to write and for some reason can't get there. Looking back I see that over the last four years, I do it at least once a year. I swear that I will never write again and then prove myself to be a liar. It's part of the cycle of writing and unless you're hypergraphic then you can't get out of it. It sucks because as strong as my compulsion to write is, is as strong as my feelings of inadequacy towards the craft. Of course every time I feel like this, it's the worse case of writer's block EVER and I will never write again!

Writer's can be SO melodramatic. ;)

Writing academically can be a hinderance as well because it can be a challenge to switch between styles and voices. Academic and creative writing require very different elements and that can be awkward to negotiate between the two.

I'll come out of it. I always do. Part of my aprehension, I think, is because of the fact that I actually killed of Agatha (my bitch muse) in that bit of Twilight drivel I concoted last. Although, I don't think she's really dead, just pouting. I imagine that when I start writing again, she will show up all tanned and relaxed with a gorgeous dark-haired, dark-eyed babe loitering in the background and carrying her hat boxes.