itsallovernow (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
itsallovernow) wrote2003-05-07 01:22 pm
itsallovernow) wrote2003-05-07 01:22 pm
Breathe, sweat, bending over resting on my knees
A night off from the teenagers. It was a brief respite, but a much needed one.
I stayed at work after everyone left and wrote and wrote. It was such a rush, and when I went back this morning to edit, I found my instincts were correct and it was good. That's such a nice way to start the day, knowing that you have much editing and handwringing in front of you, but at the same time those words that poured out really did sound like you thought they did. On the other hand, there's little worse than the disappointment that follows a rereading that makes you feel like you've never written a word in your life.
I've always held arrogance tightly to myself as a writer. I know that I'm more than competent and it would be disingenuous to pretend otherwise. Of course I have moments of self-doubt, but I also have very healthy sense of my abilitites and a good instinct towards my work. Fiction is much harder for me than nonfiction, and often I produce things that sound good, but don't have much content.
I often have to struggle for what I want to convey, and there is - as this LJ is testament too - generally much gushing, much overuse of adjectives, and an excess of language that expresses my feelings but doesn't necessarily translate into what I hear in my head. There are so many writers' whose levels of skill and daring I hope to meet someday, and some of those levels I may never attain, but it is good to have something to reach towards.
I still feel like I learn something every time I write, whether it's how to turn a phrase, how to cut out the excess, how to let a sentence flow out of you and take it's twisty windy path, how to appreciate a line or a paragraph on it's own merits, knowing it'll never see the light of day. I also know that the editing process is where the real story is shaped. I often post things on this journal that are light years away from being done, but for me, even if no one reads them, having them in a public venue is a garuntee that I'll commit to finishing them. It's the, wait wait, this is only the rough draft you have no idea how much better this is going to be syndrome. I suppose I'm only tricking myself, but as long as it works for me, oh well.
I relish the time I get lost in the words as well as the time spent on the craft. They are differnt accomplishments, equally full of merit. Humming along in a zen state of creativity is wonderful, if not so much fun for those around me, but there is so much solidity to taking the pages, sitting down with the pen and hacking away, shaping and crafting until you have something much more beautiful. Then of course, I have to close my eyes, hold my breath and send it out for a more objective opinion.
All that being said, I'm almost done with the Aeryn story and I think it's actually going to accomplish what I had intended it to, so yeah for that.
Went to ballet and rehearsal. Ballet centers me in a way nothing else will. I'm too old and too tall and my dreams of being a prima ballerina are long over, but the concentration and discipline and constant challenge of it gets me to focus in a way nothing else ever has. I can't live in my head or I will break my ankle, so for three hours a week, I am just movement and energy. It's not really a creative release for me. I am just not that talented a ballerina, but it is something contained and forceful and there are those fleeting moments when I actually do feel elevated by the music and the room, the smell of sweat and warm wood and the ache of my muscles as I reach for something I didn't think myself capable of, and it is so incredibly right and transcendant and I can take that feeling and plug it into the rest of my life.
Which is then often countered by rehearsal, by noise and motion and choreography and arguments and I take that home to, pulling them together, knowing I'm a part of a community.
I stayed at work after everyone left and wrote and wrote. It was such a rush, and when I went back this morning to edit, I found my instincts were correct and it was good. That's such a nice way to start the day, knowing that you have much editing and handwringing in front of you, but at the same time those words that poured out really did sound like you thought they did. On the other hand, there's little worse than the disappointment that follows a rereading that makes you feel like you've never written a word in your life.
I've always held arrogance tightly to myself as a writer. I know that I'm more than competent and it would be disingenuous to pretend otherwise. Of course I have moments of self-doubt, but I also have very healthy sense of my abilitites and a good instinct towards my work. Fiction is much harder for me than nonfiction, and often I produce things that sound good, but don't have much content.
I often have to struggle for what I want to convey, and there is - as this LJ is testament too - generally much gushing, much overuse of adjectives, and an excess of language that expresses my feelings but doesn't necessarily translate into what I hear in my head. There are so many writers' whose levels of skill and daring I hope to meet someday, and some of those levels I may never attain, but it is good to have something to reach towards.
I still feel like I learn something every time I write, whether it's how to turn a phrase, how to cut out the excess, how to let a sentence flow out of you and take it's twisty windy path, how to appreciate a line or a paragraph on it's own merits, knowing it'll never see the light of day. I also know that the editing process is where the real story is shaped. I often post things on this journal that are light years away from being done, but for me, even if no one reads them, having them in a public venue is a garuntee that I'll commit to finishing them. It's the, wait wait, this is only the rough draft you have no idea how much better this is going to be syndrome. I suppose I'm only tricking myself, but as long as it works for me, oh well.
I relish the time I get lost in the words as well as the time spent on the craft. They are differnt accomplishments, equally full of merit. Humming along in a zen state of creativity is wonderful, if not so much fun for those around me, but there is so much solidity to taking the pages, sitting down with the pen and hacking away, shaping and crafting until you have something much more beautiful. Then of course, I have to close my eyes, hold my breath and send it out for a more objective opinion.
All that being said, I'm almost done with the Aeryn story and I think it's actually going to accomplish what I had intended it to, so yeah for that.
Went to ballet and rehearsal. Ballet centers me in a way nothing else will. I'm too old and too tall and my dreams of being a prima ballerina are long over, but the concentration and discipline and constant challenge of it gets me to focus in a way nothing else ever has. I can't live in my head or I will break my ankle, so for three hours a week, I am just movement and energy. It's not really a creative release for me. I am just not that talented a ballerina, but it is something contained and forceful and there are those fleeting moments when I actually do feel elevated by the music and the room, the smell of sweat and warm wood and the ache of my muscles as I reach for something I didn't think myself capable of, and it is so incredibly right and transcendant and I can take that feeling and plug it into the rest of my life.
Which is then often countered by rehearsal, by noise and motion and choreography and arguments and I take that home to, pulling them together, knowing I'm a part of a community.