Cold Cruel World II *

[opera142]

Continued.

So, its Friday and I'm in Duluth, moping. The husband is supposed to come up after work. Usually co-workers vacate by noon, hubby wouldn't be up until around 7, I'm looking forward to having 7 lovely hours of OperaNeedsToThinkOutSomeStuff time. Co-workers leave late, husband arrives early. I got about an hour to myself.

Grr.

Work stuff needed thinking, my writing needed some thinking, and a social situation needed some thinking.

Duluth was the location where I was inspired to write (and complete) my first homoerotic story. (Jens, Imre and Nopeming had rough, grudge match, frat boy sex)I was hoping whatever inspired me then, might be willing to show me the way now.

My issues with conveying emotion and point are... not overwhelming me, but I think it's starting to become a Can't see the forest for the trees issue. I get so wrapped up in finding the perfect word or the poignant image, that the whole of story gets muddled--- kinda like wallpaper with a really clue pattern that no one can stand looking at for more than a few moments. I know I'm blowing it out of proportion, I know I'm fixating on it... but dammit, conveying a story is sorta the point of telling the story, and if I can't do that, then meep! my writing fails.

What's making this worse (aside from my panicky idiotness) is that I was trying to talk about it to a friends of mine. These people are creators--writing, drawing, designing ,etc-- so they know the panicks, they know they way a creator has to treasure a piece of work when no one else does. While trying to talk about it, I got the standard FanFic is bullshit line.

Great, just great.

I swear, I am so gd sick of people telling me my writing is unimportant. Ever since I started writing stories, it's been my mother berating me for wasting my time writing, my teachers telling me I need softer subjects, my artsy friends telling me I write too folksy, my writing group telling me I write too narrow, even within fanfic, I'm told my thoughts and ideas and writing are unimportant.

Fuck that. Seriously. I know I'm a fairly blunt person, and I'm not afraid to express my opinion, but for as much guff as I take for that end of my personality, no one ever notices or appreciates that I'm also one of the biggest fucking cheerleaders around. I offer advice, I take an active interest in what other people are doing, I LISTEN. And all it gets me in return is jack shit.

As much as I whine and spazz in this journal, I rarely impose my writing/grand ideas on other people. Other than some betaing requests, I've never emailed a story to someone and demanded feedback. Yet, I've had someone email chapters of her MarySue has a band epic, and hint/coerce/not let the fucking subject drop until she got some comments from me about it. Yet, she wouldn't listen to me talk about the clots in my lungs. She never asked. The subject got changed immediately the few times I brought it up.

I'm not saying because I gave a damn about my friends stuff that they should give a damn about mine. I'm definately not saying feedback or interest is a I scratch your back, you scratch mine thing. I'm not even saying I'm in the right for bitching about this. I'm just being a whiney twit, who thought being a friend equalled being treated like one in return.

Getting told my writing is unimportant hurt. It fucking hurt. I could let the crap from my mom fly, because she's a drunk. I could let the crap from my teachers fly, because as a know-it-all 17-22 year old, I knew better than they did. But from friends... just kills me. It hurt like hell when it was from other fan fic writers, it hurts worse from a r/l friend.

So now, I'm just a bundle of raw nerves. I'm worn out. I feel like some 14 year old wondering why her friends from junior high don't like her anymore.

And I'm totally fricking sick of oatmeal.

*This post can also be used as the basis for a party game called count the hissy fit tangents.

Comments

[devilswolf.livejournal.com]

You should know by now that any time you want to talk about writing--or anything else--I'm here to listen, via either AIM or email. If you want feedback on a fic, I'll give you feedback (sometimes more than you really want!), but you don't send me fic very often. =(

[opera142.livejournal.com]

Dude, you are so sweet to me. As soon as I get my shit together and can act civilised, we have got a ton of chatting to catch up on. And we're gonna have to figure out what to do with Benoit and Taker's alcohol saturated corpses.

[devilswolf.livejournal.com]

We'll have to find someplace where they can dry out together. I'm sure we can come up with something interesting.

Whenever you're ready, just hit me up. AIM or email, anything you want to talk about.

[angstbunny.livejournal.com]

I'm told my thoughts and ideas and writing are unimportant

Urgh. That really, seriously bites, and I know how you feel. My mom is very unsupportive of my writing (to put it mildly) as well. And while some of my closer friends *are* supportive, I know I take it about 1000 times more seriously, and that kind of incongruence leads to heartache. And yeah, it feels... awful. Like your existence is being invalidated.

who thought being a friend equalled being treated like one in return

That doesn't make you whiney at all. Friendship is a two-way street. To give and give and get nothing in return is shitty. Sometimes I really think the whole unselfish regard thing is just a pile of bullcrap.

Ugly cycles

[opera142.livejournal.com]

That doesn't make you whiney at all. Friendship is a two-way street. To give and give and get nothing in return is shitty. Sometimes I really think the whole unselfish regard thing is just a pile of bullcrap.

The whole unselfish thing is what makes it so hard to voice these kind of feelings to begin with---and that just compounds the feeling that my precious widdle fweelings are getting ignored.

[topknot.livejournal.com]

Having read the above, your comment to my post about the fb meaning more now than ever makes a whole lot more sense. I count myself fortunate in that while my friends may not necessarily 'get' my 'bizarre writings' (meant affectionately), they don't denigrate it in any way. The question I get most often isn't 'why do you write' but rather 'why is it nearly always slash?' Honestly, I have no concrete answer for them. I'm also asked why my writing usually involves violence and/or BDSM of some kind. That one's a bit easier. I tend to write for the audience of me, and I really enjoy reading that sort of thing.

And having rambled incessantly I now realise that what I've said is probably no help whatsoever.

[opera142.livejournal.com]

I hear ya. Questions about content, like why don't you ever write het? or how come you never write romantic things? do sting, even when they're meant nicely or in jest.

To me, content is the writer's heart. Puncuation, spelling, all that is important. Very important, but there isn't much meaning in it. There are millions of people who can diagram a sentence accurately, but are unable to tell a moving story. When content gets called out, sometimes it's hard to take, because it feels like your ideas/thinking is being judged.

I think that's (one of the reasons)why I'm in such a funk over the "unimportant" comments.

[topknot.livejournal.com]

I believe Mynx was the one who said what I'm about to sum up here. I couldn't diagram a sentence to save my life. I didn't learn the parts of speech until I took Spanish in high school. I couldn't tell you WHY a certain sentence structure works and why another one doesn't. I only know by looking/writing whether or not it's correct. It's aggravating to the extreme being as anal-retentive about spelling, punctuation, grammar, etc. as I am because I can't EXPLAIN it. It's truly a blessing and a curse. That's the main reason I don't offer to read/edit people's writing unless it's someone I know REALLY well. Then I can read for content and not constantly uncross my eyes over the poor composition of even a single sentence.

Damn, that makes me sound shallow, doesn't it?

[huntersbluerose.livejournal.com]

I can't even count the ways that I relate to this, Opera. I know it's not *exactly* what you're going through, because everyone has different feelings about the same shit.

I do know how bad it sucks that very, very few people realise that writing is my life, regardless if I'm getting paid for it or not. I'm pretty sure that 9 out 0f 10 people I knew think that the time I spend RPing and/or writing fanfic is just slacking off and shit, but I have to let that creativity out or I literally go insane. Not to say that I think I can get by in the really real world with doing just that, but if I'm given the chance to do nothing else but write (and yes, I do consider RPing writing), that's all I'll do.

My problem is that I'm the world's worst fucking FBer ever, even though if I don't get it it crushes me to hell and back. -_- How the hell I can expect anything from anyone if I give them nothing? Ugh, that's my stigma, not yours. I promiose not to rant about myself here.

I've been on no mail on all lists for forever, just because of the shit in personal life lately, and am just NOW getting caught up on my personal LJ. When I get settled in up in MA, I plan on catching up on ALL overdue reading/FBing, and I know I have some of your shit flagged for such. I'm not saying this just because you ranted this post out, either- it just happened to remind me that I need to get ALL catching up done ASAP.

If you ever need to rant/vent/just talk about... well, anything really, my AIM screen name is EvaHatesEveryone. It's friends only, but you can drop me an email at huntersbluerose@hotmail.com with yours- if you want, of course.

Not sure if that helped at all, but I hope it did. *hugs* Hope the lame ass e-hug helped, too.

*Note: I'm too tired to check for typos, mock and snicker at will.

[opera142.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure that 9 out 0f 10 people I knew think that the time I spend RPing and/or writing fanfic is just slacking off and shit, but I have to let that creativity out or I literally go insane

I totally understand that. Musing and Rping are important outlets. So is just zoning out and having weird little stories play out in your brain. Tamony and I had a very tiny interupted chat about this once. There are stories you want to write, and then there are stories you keep in your brain to amuse just you. Rping/musing falls somewhere in between. The best feels as real as any story, but at the same time is almost too personal to share with anybody but the few you're musing with.

If that makes any sense.