tl;dr on writing
May. 14th, 2010 01:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flyboy_foxRe: last entry: Heh, I'm always bowled over by how many people reply when I ask for advice on LJ or SSMB XD;; ♥ Thank you. I now have a bedside lamp, and I'm definitely gonna try the music and reading ideas to see how that helps. I feel less lonely knowing that I have lots of friends here, even if I'm a little isolated 'IRL'. My own fault, really... always moving around the country and never really attempting to socialise. I'm not shy... I'm just pretty crap with people, really XD;
I was thinking back on the stuff I used to do as a kid, because I was reminded of a couple of poems that I wrote when I was a young teenager. One was called 'The Lake', and the other I can't remember the name of but was about the end of the world. I loved writing as a child, it was my joy, my lifeblood and my catharsis. One of my favourite games I used to have my mum play with me on rainy days or in doctors' waiting rooms or long queues at the bank was to have her give me a random word (or phrase) that I would have to write a quick poem about. One time, on a train, she gave me "a blank sheet of paper" as a prompt to try to stump me or test my creativity. I wrote a poem about all the things that I could make or do with that paper, and it made my mum smile. She was always my biggest fan, of course. One time at school as part of my project about endangered species when I was 7 or 8 I wrote a poem about the peregrine falcon. The first verse was "The peregrine swoops with grace and skill / But many a day are being killed". I remember it because my teacher, Mrs Compton-Howlitt - who I will always remember fondly - turned it into a song and taught it to the entire lower school. The refrain was simply "Peregrine... Peregrine...". I was so proud.
What changed? What happened? I used to write all the damn time. I'm not talking about blogging. Sure, I do a lot of that. But not disciplined writing. I wrote short stories too. When I was 11 I wrote a novela called "Iesa, Warrior of Thanya". Clichéd, maybe, but it was a full novela of about 50 pages. I finished things. I wrote my first Classic Star Trek fanfictions at the age of 9 before I even had the Internet and knew that other people out there wrote stories about their favourite TV shows and games. I wrote and I wrote and I wrote. Paper surrounded me the way pizza boxes and soda cans surround college kids (I can attest!). Everything was a trigger, a prompt, an idea. I considered myself a writer by profession even before I was old enough to get a job. I was going to write books. Novels. Non-fiction. Poetry.
Then the real world hit me in the face with a cup of very cold acidic coffee. My first rejection was from a charity, known then as The Spastics Society - now renamed to Mencap. I must have been 12 or 13 when I wrote a book of poetry for them to raise money. I sent it to them with my childlike wish that they might use my poems for something. I waited and waited and heard nothing from them. Not even a 'thank you for your letter' note. I was too young to understand why they wouldn't want my work, or that they might be too busy or simply uninterested in a child's silly poetic scribblings. I was heartbroken.
Still, I continued to write. My writing became less childish and silly, and began to edge on depressive. "The Lake" and the Armageddon poem were filled with images of doubt, worry, anxiety, self-reckoning. The last line of the Armageddon poem was "The veil slips, a tear falls, and then nothing moves again". Nothing did move again. I never wrote any more poetry, except occasionally for Jei's birthday or if she was sad. I don't even do that any more.
Someone who found my Lake poem some 7 or 8 years ago battered the final nail into the coffin of my desire to write. He (or she) told me quite plainly that my writing was nothing special. Mediocre. Not that good. Up until that point, I had still held on stubbornly to the belief that I was a writer the way that Jei is an artist. That our talents complimented each other because she could draw well and I could write well. But I wasn't a little kid any more. People weren't going to hold my hand and tell me how wonderful my stories and poems were. And that was a cold harsh wake up call. I depended on being a good writer because my talents in any other area were negligible. I am not artistic, not a musician, not beautiful or graceful or popular. I'm not a social person, nor am I an inventor of great things or purveyor of great ideas. For the majority of my young life I believed that my only real talent was as a wordsmith. When that ship was sunk, I kind of gave up. If even my writing was mediocre, then I was doomed for a life of mere mediocrity. My one honest pride was foolishly placed and nothing more than self-delusion.
I miss my writing, and I wonder on how I gave up on it so easily. In the beginning I wrote for myself, for the pleasure and joy that it gave me. What changed? Why did I start to care what other people thought of my 'work'? Why am I a slave to the judgements of others?
I feel like I should open a notebook and turn to a crisp brand new page and start again. Maybe I'll find something that's missing. Maybe I'll find a missing part of me.
I'm going to start writing again. Even if it's just scrappy lines of badly rhyming verse on the side of a Tesco shopping receipt, so help me I'll write again. And it will feel good.
I was thinking back on the stuff I used to do as a kid, because I was reminded of a couple of poems that I wrote when I was a young teenager. One was called 'The Lake', and the other I can't remember the name of but was about the end of the world. I loved writing as a child, it was my joy, my lifeblood and my catharsis. One of my favourite games I used to have my mum play with me on rainy days or in doctors' waiting rooms or long queues at the bank was to have her give me a random word (or phrase) that I would have to write a quick poem about. One time, on a train, she gave me "a blank sheet of paper" as a prompt to try to stump me or test my creativity. I wrote a poem about all the things that I could make or do with that paper, and it made my mum smile. She was always my biggest fan, of course. One time at school as part of my project about endangered species when I was 7 or 8 I wrote a poem about the peregrine falcon. The first verse was "The peregrine swoops with grace and skill / But many a day are being killed". I remember it because my teacher, Mrs Compton-Howlitt - who I will always remember fondly - turned it into a song and taught it to the entire lower school. The refrain was simply "Peregrine... Peregrine...". I was so proud.
What changed? What happened? I used to write all the damn time. I'm not talking about blogging. Sure, I do a lot of that. But not disciplined writing. I wrote short stories too. When I was 11 I wrote a novela called "Iesa, Warrior of Thanya". Clichéd, maybe, but it was a full novela of about 50 pages. I finished things. I wrote my first Classic Star Trek fanfictions at the age of 9 before I even had the Internet and knew that other people out there wrote stories about their favourite TV shows and games. I wrote and I wrote and I wrote. Paper surrounded me the way pizza boxes and soda cans surround college kids (I can attest!). Everything was a trigger, a prompt, an idea. I considered myself a writer by profession even before I was old enough to get a job. I was going to write books. Novels. Non-fiction. Poetry.
Then the real world hit me in the face with a cup of very cold acidic coffee. My first rejection was from a charity, known then as The Spastics Society - now renamed to Mencap. I must have been 12 or 13 when I wrote a book of poetry for them to raise money. I sent it to them with my childlike wish that they might use my poems for something. I waited and waited and heard nothing from them. Not even a 'thank you for your letter' note. I was too young to understand why they wouldn't want my work, or that they might be too busy or simply uninterested in a child's silly poetic scribblings. I was heartbroken.
Still, I continued to write. My writing became less childish and silly, and began to edge on depressive. "The Lake" and the Armageddon poem were filled with images of doubt, worry, anxiety, self-reckoning. The last line of the Armageddon poem was "The veil slips, a tear falls, and then nothing moves again". Nothing did move again. I never wrote any more poetry, except occasionally for Jei's birthday or if she was sad. I don't even do that any more.
Someone who found my Lake poem some 7 or 8 years ago battered the final nail into the coffin of my desire to write. He (or she) told me quite plainly that my writing was nothing special. Mediocre. Not that good. Up until that point, I had still held on stubbornly to the belief that I was a writer the way that Jei is an artist. That our talents complimented each other because she could draw well and I could write well. But I wasn't a little kid any more. People weren't going to hold my hand and tell me how wonderful my stories and poems were. And that was a cold harsh wake up call. I depended on being a good writer because my talents in any other area were negligible. I am not artistic, not a musician, not beautiful or graceful or popular. I'm not a social person, nor am I an inventor of great things or purveyor of great ideas. For the majority of my young life I believed that my only real talent was as a wordsmith. When that ship was sunk, I kind of gave up. If even my writing was mediocre, then I was doomed for a life of mere mediocrity. My one honest pride was foolishly placed and nothing more than self-delusion.
I miss my writing, and I wonder on how I gave up on it so easily. In the beginning I wrote for myself, for the pleasure and joy that it gave me. What changed? Why did I start to care what other people thought of my 'work'? Why am I a slave to the judgements of others?
I feel like I should open a notebook and turn to a crisp brand new page and start again. Maybe I'll find something that's missing. Maybe I'll find a missing part of me.
I'm going to start writing again. Even if it's just scrappy lines of badly rhyming verse on the side of a Tesco shopping receipt, so help me I'll write again. And it will feel good.
