writing thoughts
Aug. 27th, 2004 02:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rmPersistant bout of melancholy today, which is indicative of female hormonal crap as much as anything else. The anything else, however, includes the fact that I've a lot of writing to do tonight, which will hopefully help me finish solving something I'm trying to figure out about other writing I should be doing.
The fannish stuff I've been doing lately has suddenly become emotionally and structurally elegant in a way I'm often reaching for and don't always succeed at, and in the wake of that, I'm looking at it and saying "why I can't I take those themes and work with them in a commercially viable framework?" The answer of course is no reason whatsoever -- I'm just terrible at creating worlds, even when that world is a mere reproduction of our own, and I have what may be a foolish allergy to writing the sorts of environments that I tend to navigate most effectively as a writer.
I also have problems with secondary plots (as opposed to sub-plots), but have historically assumed them necessary because people don't want to deal with tight focus, which can be exhausting or just indicative of less-than-mature writing skills. Oddly, the Hornblower books are making me challenge those assumptions, because they are weird weird weird in their structure (and no, that's not been the fannish stuff I've been working on, as an aside). Hrmmmm. So we'll see. There's a lot more to talk about here, including "can I write a story that's poly with it being a poly story" because it's not just that I think I can, it's that I think I should, and that I've got something to say there, not in lessons or romanticism but tone.
My number one objection to nearly everything on this earth is that we have such a hard time getting our head around the idea that complicated people lead complicated lives and that most people are complicated even if they aren't always capable of showing or expressing that. It's such a simple thought to use as a starting point to write something, but I think it's absolutely right on my part. I'm very interested in, among other things, greedy struggles for contentment.
Feeling defensive about all these writing thoughts. Writing is not me licking my wounds about acting (hello, two auditions in the next 24 hours), but just something I do, and have always done professionally/quasi-professionally, it just doesn't keep me awake at night, and so I don't talk about it much, and as such it's probably entirely new thing to a lot of the people who have friended me of late.
And yes, I also write fanfiction. And yes, when I say the word in public I whisper it, sort of like uptight old people saying "prison" or "cancer".
Anyway.
The fannish stuff I've been doing lately has suddenly become emotionally and structurally elegant in a way I'm often reaching for and don't always succeed at, and in the wake of that, I'm looking at it and saying "why I can't I take those themes and work with them in a commercially viable framework?" The answer of course is no reason whatsoever -- I'm just terrible at creating worlds, even when that world is a mere reproduction of our own, and I have what may be a foolish allergy to writing the sorts of environments that I tend to navigate most effectively as a writer.
I also have problems with secondary plots (as opposed to sub-plots), but have historically assumed them necessary because people don't want to deal with tight focus, which can be exhausting or just indicative of less-than-mature writing skills. Oddly, the Hornblower books are making me challenge those assumptions, because they are weird weird weird in their structure (and no, that's not been the fannish stuff I've been working on, as an aside). Hrmmmm. So we'll see. There's a lot more to talk about here, including "can I write a story that's poly with it being a poly story" because it's not just that I think I can, it's that I think I should, and that I've got something to say there, not in lessons or romanticism but tone.
My number one objection to nearly everything on this earth is that we have such a hard time getting our head around the idea that complicated people lead complicated lives and that most people are complicated even if they aren't always capable of showing or expressing that. It's such a simple thought to use as a starting point to write something, but I think it's absolutely right on my part. I'm very interested in, among other things, greedy struggles for contentment.
Feeling defensive about all these writing thoughts. Writing is not me licking my wounds about acting (hello, two auditions in the next 24 hours), but just something I do, and have always done professionally/quasi-professionally, it just doesn't keep me awake at night, and so I don't talk about it much, and as such it's probably entirely new thing to a lot of the people who have friended me of late.
And yes, I also write fanfiction. And yes, when I say the word in public I whisper it, sort of like uptight old people saying "prison" or "cancer".
Anyway.
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no subject
Date: 2004-08-27 01:51 pm (UTC)I actually have been of the mind for awhile that all characters should be approached this way. Not that all incapable of expressing it, but that all, like the dramatic tradition of the soliloquy, can find a way of understanding themselves which is beyond their "real" capability. That their voices and their understanding of themselves are sometimes beyond what their ability would be in the real world, if you get my meaning.
I also think that no one is really simple, no matter how unintelligent or boring they may seem. It just isn't human nature, (or interesting enough to be written about). So, I believe characters drawn from that part of the well are just more realistic on the whole.