Going to a zen place while writing

[quietmoon]

I'm trying to get better about not apologising for not being around. So instead of doing that, I will put this sentence as a placeholder where the apology would go, and wish the best for you and yours. I am doing as well as can be (given the obvious). :)

Alright. Onto the thoughts. It's just a short post today, about something that I find myself thinking about every time I revisit my writing.

I love to reread my fic. I know for a lot of people it feels very uncomfortable or cringe-inducing, but I don't really feel that way about anything I've published. Before publishing, I get that so bad I can't bear to reread stuff even for editing — it's such a miserable job that I've not learned how to edit in the past decade plus of posting fic online. But once I've published it, it very much feels like my brain quite literally throws it out. It honestly stops feeling like something I wrote.

I think that's why I enjoy it so much. It's like reading fic perfectly tailored to myself — obviously, since I wrote it — with ideas that I was dying to read so badly I ended up writing them myself, or characterisation that hits just right — because, again, it came from me so of course it it's going to fit anyone's tastes, it'll be my own.

Actually, I really struggle to connect the writing as something I wrote myself. When I read, I think to myself, 'How did I put a sentence like that together?' or 'How did I remember what that word means when I had to google it just now?'. I don't think about what I'm putting on the page when I write, and I already knew that I go into a weird sort of mental zone where it's very much like I'm the video camera taping the scene itself, but I guess I just now put two and two together that maybe that's why I feel so disconnected from a story once it's finished.

I have no memory of where I was or what was happening in my real life once I've written something. It does sort of feel as if, when I sit down to write, I teleport for the duration. And when I look back at what I come up with, it's like, how on earth did I manage to do that? If I try to string a sentence together while consciously... thinking about it, for lack of a better term, it feels so awkward and stilted and impossible.

I wonder if this also ties into why I feel like I'm a pipe all backed up when I haven't written for ages. It feels strangely essential. Or maybe that's wholly unrelated — I'm tempted to believe it is lmao.

Anyway. Just some thoughts. And I want to say just as I round this up that while I'm writing, it does feel like pulling teeth sometimes. No peaceful zen feelings for me. Or, no, rather, the moments between putting the words on paper. But the physical act of actually writing is just that: very zen.

*shrug* I really miss writing and hate that I can't do it right now because work time constraints sighhhh. Three weeks. TwT

Comments

[silveradept]

Ugh. I hope you get time and flow to write with.

(I reread my stuff, too, when they're are new comments for it.)

[quietmoon]

Thank you, me too. I've been catching up with various media in an attempt to stave off the writing bug lol. That writing zen diagram of inspiration, time, and energy feels very relevant right now orz

Yeah, that's what often gets me to reread too! It starts like 'oh, let's get some context for this comment' and ends up two hours later with me having reread the whole thing.

[pauraque]

Hey, it's good to hear from you!

For me, re-reading my own writing can vary a lot. There's a sweet spot where it's something I wrote long enough ago that I'm detached from it, yet not so long ago that it has a lot of rookie mistakes that make me facepalm. I've definitely had the experience of wondering how I came up with something!

There are a few fics that I have specific memories of writing, because I associate them with some life event that was going on at the time. In fact, there's one fic that's actually one of my more popular ones on AO3, which for a long time I avoided re-reading because I remembered how unhappy I was IRL at the time I wrote it. But when I finally did look at it again, I realized it didn't show in the writing at all. I must have been able to 'teleport' better than I thought.

Self-editing is tough and I kind of hate it, but I do it anyway, haha. Recently there was a discussion about self-editing on malenkayacherepakha 's journal that I thought was pretty interesting.

[quietmoon]

Thank you!! ♥ Hope you're staying well?

Oh, gosh. I understand the feeling, especially of fic turning out different from how one remembers/how one expects it to in hindsight. It's amazing the relationship between art and creator, especially (to me) writing because words are the primary way we communicate, you know? It's so interesting to see what makes it into a story and what doesn't. Also, I'm sorry for the bad time you had. *hugs*

I will definitely enjoy reading through these comments, thank you for linking me! I love that about dreamwidth. It always feels like humans interacting, as opposed to a more detached feeling on other platforms. (Or maybe it's just me lsdfjkhgf)

[pauraque]

I'm well, thanks! I'm mostly a homebody anyway, so staying at home hasn't been much of a burden for me. I hope you're doing well too. :)

I understand the feeling, especially of fic turning out different from how one remembers/how one expects it to in hindsight. It's amazing the relationship between art and creator, especially (to me) writing because words are the primary way we communicate, you know?

Yeah, totally. A piece of work is a record of our thought process at the time that we created it. Once it's finished, it becomes a fixed object that doesn't change any further - but the creator continues to change and grow as they live their life. So naturally when we look at our work again later, it often seems different or surprising. Although we're still the creator, we're not exactly the same person we were then.

Also, I'm sorry for the bad time you had. *hugs*

Aw, thank you! It was a long time ago and all water under the bridge now. *hugs*

I love that about dreamwidth. It always feels like humans interacting, as opposed to a more detached feeling on other platforms. (Or maybe it's just me lsdfjkhgf)

I don't think it's just you. I've heard others say the same!

[quietmoon]

I'm much the same. My workload has increased, and I miss my friends and family, but overall I'm as good as can be.

Yes, exactly! It's almost like a candid snapshot frozen through time. I love that about fiction writing — how intensely personal it can be yet at the same time far removed. *shakes fist* I love writing so much!!

I'm glad to hear it. ^_^

♥

[oldtoadwoman]

Sometimes someone will leave a comment and I don't even remember what they're referring to so I'll go back and re-read the chapter in question (and sometimes, even with the long ones, that drags me back into re-reading the entire thing). I do find that I enjoy re-reading most of my fic (the ones that I don't enjoy... I have this nagging feeling that maybe I should create another AO3 pseud and re-assign the mediocre stuff... or possibly delete it or orphan it? I can never decide what to do with the cringy stuff).

As you say, fanfic is literally a custom-made story of stuff to make the author happy. :-)

Re: ♥

[quietmoon]

In my experience, I regret not having moved things to a different pseud instead of orphaning. It would have been a good in between step to hide it from plain sight while not making it irretrievable. Every situation is unique, though!

fanfic is literally a custom-made story of stuff to make the author happy — ♥

Re: ♥

[oldtoadwoman]

I want to think of a good pseud name that indicates to people "I half-heartedly disavow this, read at your own risk" without insulting anyone who actually *likes* the stories in question.

The two that nag at me the most are both short Game of Thrones stuff that I banged out quickly during the final season when I was very out of sync with what the show actually presented.

I don't even think either is badly-written just... embarrassingly "I reject your reality and substitute my own" which... now that I think of it, is kind of the point to a lot of this, isn't it? I'm probably just going to leave them be.

Re: ♥

[quietmoon]

I think it is. ♥

Weirdly, I think it's only quite recent (like, within a year or two) of writing a fic that I think it's bad. If more than that time passes, I end up feeling nostalgic for it, even if I still think it's terribly written. Maybe because I'm detached enough from it not to care anymore. *shrug* One fan's trash is another fan's treasure haha.

Re: ♥

[oldtoadwoman]

You're probably right. The Game of Thrones stuff is probably still too recent, hence it's still in the "why did I write this crap?" zone.

Awhile back I signed up to do something for a gift exchange (I have since sworn off gift exchanges because they always stress me out) and I was going to do artwork and the artwork was just coming out garbage and the recipient had indicated they'd like fic or art so I quickly banged out a triple-drabble (literally the minimum word count required for the exchange) and then I decided the fic was garbage and that I had to try harder on the art, so I scrabbled together a photomanip. And I still thought that was garbage but hoped that giving the person multiple mediocre gifts would sort of count as one good gift. ...and now that photo-manip that I thought was so awful is one of my favorite icons.

Re: ♥

[quietmoon]

I'm the same with gift exchanges lol. I'll participate in the odd bingo or, you know, challenge, but I won't do anything that has anyone else depending on me. Too many times I've let people down and gotten really upset in the process. *sigh*

That's a cute story, though. Goes to show how different our perceptions of our work can be to other people's, or even our own after some time. That picture of the "my cake isn't as good as the other one / wow, two cakes!" comes to mind, too.

Re: ♥

[oldtoadwoman]

I have now done two pinch-hits for exchanges and it went so much better. I didn't have the guilt of it not being good enough (since otherwise, the person would have gotten nothing). I'm also writing for the intoabar challenge for the second time (they just give you a prompt, there is no recipient and no one to disappoint if they don't like it). It's worked out so much better than the fic exchanges.

I love the "Two cakes!" thing and need to remember it more often. (Why is it so easy to forget?) Because it's true! Have you ever seen Cakewrecks? For some reason, the worst ones usually involve extra frosting so even as I'm laughing at how terrible it looks, there's a part of my brain going "That monstrosity looks delicious."