Writing privilege?
Mar. 29th, 2019 03:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bladesparkI'm not sure what else to call it, exactly. How easy the mechanics and general base-level production of writing is for me. Reading is the same way. When I was a teenager I finished two novels nearly every day for a couple of years. I read like the blazes and I write that way too. NaNoWriMo doesn't feel like a meaningful challenge, either I'll be unable to focus on one project at all, or I'll manage to keep focus and do it in half the time. (I once wrote 70k in eight days, three of which were spent camping and away from any means of typing. That was...interesting. I've done "NaNo in a week" a couple of times as well.)
It's very great! Honestly, great! It's really great! I am glad I can write like that, it's amazing!
It just comes with two microscopic downsides. One is that much of what I write doesn't really get read right away. A lot of writers collect writer friends, or non-writer friends, who read their stuff as they write it. They share their stories with beta readers, they get feedback, they talk about "the" thing they write. I can't do that, because there is no "the" thing, there's the 20-50 things (not kidding, it just depends on how you count) I have in progress, and the 2-4k per typical writing day word output that's just too much to ask anybody to read. I'm pretty sure most of my patrons don't read the "bonus" stuff I share with them either. I just keep posting it anyway because... I dunno. They're paying me money, I should be giving them something for it.
The other downside is that I feel I can't complain about "bad" weeks. I'm in a few writing groups, and sometimes I chime in on the check in posts, but this week I started to type out that I only managed to write the trans furry thing and a short gift fanfic, and 10k total words, pretty much all on two days, none of them on what I really "should" be working on, felt so disappointing, and last week was like that too, and I anticipate next week being even worse for reasons, (gonna be blogging about that for sure, ugh) and it feels so bad.
But really? I'm going to bitch about "only" writing 10k worth of words in a week? In a forum where people are celebrating word counts in the hundreds? No. That feels kinda sick to do. No way.
So I guess I bitch to you all instead, half of whom are quite certainly going "I wish I could have only written 10k words this week!" since I know many people reading here are writers of some kind or another.
But it just still feels bad. I have things I need to be doing! I have shit I owe my patrons and I have commissions I owe people and I have all these ideas that should be taking off in beautiful fire and instead are just flopping about in limp, sad piles in my ideas document.
It's very great! Honestly, great! It's really great! I am glad I can write like that, it's amazing!
It just comes with two microscopic downsides. One is that much of what I write doesn't really get read right away. A lot of writers collect writer friends, or non-writer friends, who read their stuff as they write it. They share their stories with beta readers, they get feedback, they talk about "the" thing they write. I can't do that, because there is no "the" thing, there's the 20-50 things (not kidding, it just depends on how you count) I have in progress, and the 2-4k per typical writing day word output that's just too much to ask anybody to read. I'm pretty sure most of my patrons don't read the "bonus" stuff I share with them either. I just keep posting it anyway because... I dunno. They're paying me money, I should be giving them something for it.
The other downside is that I feel I can't complain about "bad" weeks. I'm in a few writing groups, and sometimes I chime in on the check in posts, but this week I started to type out that I only managed to write the trans furry thing and a short gift fanfic, and 10k total words, pretty much all on two days, none of them on what I really "should" be working on, felt so disappointing, and last week was like that too, and I anticipate next week being even worse for reasons, (gonna be blogging about that for sure, ugh) and it feels so bad.
But really? I'm going to bitch about "only" writing 10k worth of words in a week? In a forum where people are celebrating word counts in the hundreds? No. That feels kinda sick to do. No way.
So I guess I bitch to you all instead, half of whom are quite certainly going "I wish I could have only written 10k words this week!" since I know many people reading here are writers of some kind or another.
But it just still feels bad. I have things I need to be doing! I have shit I owe my patrons and I have commissions I owe people and I have all these ideas that should be taking off in beautiful fire and instead are just flopping about in limp, sad piles in my ideas document.
no subject
Date: 2019-03-30 12:49 am (UTC)That said, the things I could do with a longer amount of time to devote and the themes to examine. But, I'm a multi-media artist and writing is only one of many arts I practice. I will relate, however, my husband's relieved reaction when I started writing seriously. "At least writing won't require a lot of materials and expenditures." So true. Much less expensive than my metalsmithing, beading, artwork, etc.
- Erulisse (one L)