Going to a zen place while writing
May. 3rd, 2020 11:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quietmoonI'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
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
no subject
Date: 2020-05-07 01:22 pm (UTC)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!
no subject
Date: 2020-05-07 08:27 pm (UTC)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. ^_^