Wangst and weemo

[feuervogel]

I read a lot of writers' blogs. Or LJs, whatever. And I've started to feel like I'm inadequate and inept as a writer, because I wasn't an English major. I'm not Trained in things like Narrative Technique, Structure, and Symbolism, and I'm not well-read enough in classics, folklore, or myths to make use of Allusions.

I'm an impostor.

All I've got is some characters, a story idea, and 20-odd years of reading spec fic (and some Real Books™). No technique, no ideas for creative symbolism or structure or literary allusions.

I'm never gonna sell anything.

Comments

[tammylee.livejournal.com]

AHhaha! YES! Exactly! My experience was with a poet and a teacher who kept arguing a particular meaning for this one line and when we asked the poet himself about it he looked at us and pretty much said, "I don't remember what I was thinking when I wrote that."

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

LOLOL -- I feel pretentious now. ^_______^

*chops and cuts and trims*

[tammylee.livejournal.com]

LOL!
Not at all! Like smarriveurr has said, "...all the work from here on out is on the part of the audience." If you're in the audience, then poke away but don't look to the originator of the work for validation on your observations. XD

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

(To be honest, "trimming" is NEVER bad advice when directed at me. But that's another thing. ^_______^)

No, I gotcha. Poor Dead Author. :-D (LOL I remember a prof giving us an anecdote about "I grow old, I grow old, I will wear my trousers rolled" -- everyone was looking for a huge death metaphor or something when in fact Eliot stated that he was just stuck and needed a rhyme.)

[smarriveurr.livejournal.com]

Bingo. We talked specifically in my Hermeneutics class at the Philipps-Uni about how you can't divorce the reader from an interpretation of a piece, but it's all too easy to divorce the writer - his/her job is done, and all the work from here on out is on the part of the audience.

[tammylee.livejournal.com]

his/her job is done, and all the work from here on out is on the part of the audience
That is heartening to read! I always thought I was a bit odd for how callously I move onto another project when I finish something. I've always felt that once something is published the creator's job is done. Which is probably why I so STRONGLY resent people like George Lucas going back and revising a published work.

[smarriveurr.livejournal.com]

Any creative work is inevitably out of the hands of the creator eventually. The goal, as far as my Professor was concerned, was to try to achieve a "molten horizon", where you and the creator kind of meet.

I'm terrible about editing. It's one of the reasons I don't really write anymore, nothing ever feels done. But once something is published, it's out of your hands. You might cringe at it if you read it again, you might think you could tell that story so much better now, or handle that scene with more skill... but it's over. It's not uniquely yours, it's in the hands of the fans and the minds of the readers. You can say what you tried to achieve, what you wanted to say, but the message, ultimately, is in their heads.

Grabbing Lucas, classic example: Han shot first. No one cares how Lucas wanted that scene to go, much less how he wants it to go now. The audience considered it a defining facet of a complex character, and audiences thoroughly objected to mucking around with it.

[tammylee.livejournal.com]

Han shot first and I really show my geek colours when that phrase brings a swelling to my heart that one usually associates with national pride. XD

But yes, exactly.

I like deadlines because they FORCE me to push a story away and declare it finished. You could tinker ad infinitum otherwise.

[smarriveurr.livejournal.com]

It seemed pretty much the most iconic "You are actually detracting from your work by trying to 'improve' it" example to hand. ;)

I have a love-hate relationship with deadlines. I don't work well in an open-ended environment, but deadlines always give me agita. Part of me wants to try to set some rules and get back into writing. Part of me wonders if the results would be worth the stress.