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Aug. 24th, 2006 01:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hippybngstockngTime for a ramble...
I've been quite stuck in my head these days. Not getting enough done, letting everything hang, and just thinking. It's probably PMS but it doesn't feel the same. Heavy thoughts, but of a more solid and substantial, hopeful nature. The long road ahead, the twisted path behind..
I think it boils down to this: I am still a writer. I need to accept that. I never stopped being one. I've let my impostor syndrome get way-the-fuck out of control, and it's choked me so full of writer's block I've turned into a doorstop. A very unhappy doorstop.
How I know: Nothing gives me more joy than hammering away at something for a little while, laughing at myself, laughing, and then throwing it up there, and letting all of you laugh with me. NOTHING, except maybe when my son does something truly amazing or undeniably cute. Since I can't sit around with a cattle prod and poke him all day until he does something cute (kidding!) I should really try to come up with a better way to get back into this writing thing without it turning my other life upside down when I've got something I need to get out. I've got a LOT I need to get out.. In both worlds.
And that's where we come back to the impostor syndrome...
I use the word audience a lot when I try to talk about writing, and I bet you all are thinking, 'what is that silly hippy talking about? I'm not her audience, I'm her friend..' but really you're also my audience too. That's the thing, I've always had some audience problems. I used to get scared of showing writing to anyone, especially when the 'audience' knows me.. When you show yourself to another writer or a stranger, the kind of feedback you get is about the piece and how well it works as writing, not about you and why you wrote it usually. That's half the reason I could mostly not bring myself to let my mother read my stuff, ever, because with her it was always about my motivations as a person for saying the things I was tyring to say, and NOT about what I was saying, and how it was said. Not too shocking it turned into instantaneous impostor syndrome, and has stuck with me throughout forever.
When I write, I feel dirty, just for standing up for what I have to say, even when I feel like what I am saying is fair, or *gasp* RIGHT. I have a really hard time with admitting any need to ever be right. That was my mom's job. It was my job to suck, and hear about it, a lot. I am quite good at hearing how much I suck from strangers, actually, but from friends and family.. I try to remove the lack of objectivity from what they say, and try not to focus on their motivations for them, and if I can't make sense of it I am just left with the feeling of sucking. The magical thing about that and writing though, we're ALLOWED to suck as people, we're allowed to be human and be weird, and write about it as long as the WRITING doesn't suck. These are all good things that should not deter me from my goal in the least, yet, I totally let them. I feel like if I suck as a person, I shouldn't be allowed to write, or perhaps I really should be punished for the things I say. Apparently I believe everyone is entitled to suck out loud and have their free speech, but not me. I am an impostor. I am the person your mother warned you about. Don't buy my book.
I know lots of the ways I could try to fix this, I know lots of the techniques to try to bring myself back into writing regularly, and more, different stuff, but it all seems so impossible when I try to fit it into my other life.. I am already struggling to keep house and child in the places they need to be, plus making sure nothing else explodes or drifts away from me at the same time. Raising the level of complexity by another factor of 20 seems a little overly brave, or shall we say, STUPID right now.
Without it though.. Without it, I just don't function anyway, so what's the point of not trying?
I feel like I just can't though- I am one of those writers where when I start, I just keep going, and going and going and going.... I won't stop, or if I do, my brain is still very much there, not here, not even if you ask me nicely to pay attention for a few minutes. This was fine when I was in college, and it would amuse my friends to run into my rambling and incoherent ass at the dining hall, going on about some character, and some deep philosophical concept I was trying to address. I make for an interesting lunch companion at this point, but you wouldn't want to live with me, you could try to track down any of my ex's who tried and ask them. I can't, they won't talk to me anymore.
But if I don't start doing it soon, I really am going to disappear. I am job. I am not job. I function. I don't function. I sit. I breathe. I consume. I am job. I am not job. Lather, rinse, repeat.
It's really me, not my writing, that has the problem. It's always been me. I even feel too broken to say THIS out loud, this simple universal feeling of low self esteem. Even though you've all known all along about it, even though it's wildly apparent to anyone who even just stops by, I can't bring myself to SAY it, and MEAN it, and have it be OKAY.. I'm a not perfect. I just am. If I am an impostor, then that's just okay...
"Time for the final bout
Rows of deserted houses
All our stable mates highway bound
Give us our measly sum
Getting the air inside my lungs is heavenly
Starting out with nothing but crippling doubt
We'll rest easy justified
Suffered a swift defeat, i'll endure countless repeats
The gift of memory is an awful curse
With age it just gets much worse, but i won't mind
I won't mind
I won't mind
I won't mind"
-Death Cab For Cutie
I've been quite stuck in my head these days. Not getting enough done, letting everything hang, and just thinking. It's probably PMS but it doesn't feel the same. Heavy thoughts, but of a more solid and substantial, hopeful nature. The long road ahead, the twisted path behind..
I think it boils down to this: I am still a writer. I need to accept that. I never stopped being one. I've let my impostor syndrome get way-the-fuck out of control, and it's choked me so full of writer's block I've turned into a doorstop. A very unhappy doorstop.
How I know: Nothing gives me more joy than hammering away at something for a little while, laughing at myself, laughing, and then throwing it up there, and letting all of you laugh with me. NOTHING, except maybe when my son does something truly amazing or undeniably cute. Since I can't sit around with a cattle prod and poke him all day until he does something cute (kidding!) I should really try to come up with a better way to get back into this writing thing without it turning my other life upside down when I've got something I need to get out. I've got a LOT I need to get out.. In both worlds.
And that's where we come back to the impostor syndrome...
I use the word audience a lot when I try to talk about writing, and I bet you all are thinking, 'what is that silly hippy talking about? I'm not her audience, I'm her friend..' but really you're also my audience too. That's the thing, I've always had some audience problems. I used to get scared of showing writing to anyone, especially when the 'audience' knows me.. When you show yourself to another writer or a stranger, the kind of feedback you get is about the piece and how well it works as writing, not about you and why you wrote it usually. That's half the reason I could mostly not bring myself to let my mother read my stuff, ever, because with her it was always about my motivations as a person for saying the things I was tyring to say, and NOT about what I was saying, and how it was said. Not too shocking it turned into instantaneous impostor syndrome, and has stuck with me throughout forever.
When I write, I feel dirty, just for standing up for what I have to say, even when I feel like what I am saying is fair, or *gasp* RIGHT. I have a really hard time with admitting any need to ever be right. That was my mom's job. It was my job to suck, and hear about it, a lot. I am quite good at hearing how much I suck from strangers, actually, but from friends and family.. I try to remove the lack of objectivity from what they say, and try not to focus on their motivations for them, and if I can't make sense of it I am just left with the feeling of sucking. The magical thing about that and writing though, we're ALLOWED to suck as people, we're allowed to be human and be weird, and write about it as long as the WRITING doesn't suck. These are all good things that should not deter me from my goal in the least, yet, I totally let them. I feel like if I suck as a person, I shouldn't be allowed to write, or perhaps I really should be punished for the things I say. Apparently I believe everyone is entitled to suck out loud and have their free speech, but not me. I am an impostor. I am the person your mother warned you about. Don't buy my book.
I know lots of the ways I could try to fix this, I know lots of the techniques to try to bring myself back into writing regularly, and more, different stuff, but it all seems so impossible when I try to fit it into my other life.. I am already struggling to keep house and child in the places they need to be, plus making sure nothing else explodes or drifts away from me at the same time. Raising the level of complexity by another factor of 20 seems a little overly brave, or shall we say, STUPID right now.
Without it though.. Without it, I just don't function anyway, so what's the point of not trying?
I feel like I just can't though- I am one of those writers where when I start, I just keep going, and going and going and going.... I won't stop, or if I do, my brain is still very much there, not here, not even if you ask me nicely to pay attention for a few minutes. This was fine when I was in college, and it would amuse my friends to run into my rambling and incoherent ass at the dining hall, going on about some character, and some deep philosophical concept I was trying to address. I make for an interesting lunch companion at this point, but you wouldn't want to live with me, you could try to track down any of my ex's who tried and ask them. I can't, they won't talk to me anymore.
But if I don't start doing it soon, I really am going to disappear. I am job. I am not job. I function. I don't function. I sit. I breathe. I consume. I am job. I am not job. Lather, rinse, repeat.
It's really me, not my writing, that has the problem. It's always been me. I even feel too broken to say THIS out loud, this simple universal feeling of low self esteem. Even though you've all known all along about it, even though it's wildly apparent to anyone who even just stops by, I can't bring myself to SAY it, and MEAN it, and have it be OKAY.. I'm a not perfect. I just am. If I am an impostor, then that's just okay...
"Time for the final bout
Rows of deserted houses
All our stable mates highway bound
Give us our measly sum
Getting the air inside my lungs is heavenly
Starting out with nothing but crippling doubt
We'll rest easy justified
Suffered a swift defeat, i'll endure countless repeats
The gift of memory is an awful curse
With age it just gets much worse, but i won't mind
I won't mind
I won't mind
I won't mind"
-Death Cab For Cutie
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no subject
Date: 2006-08-24 06:51 pm (UTC)Basically this- I don't want anything about this post making anyone, ANYONE feel like they can't ever tell me how they feel about me, or my writing. I always welcome comments, hell, I practically beg for them, so always feel free. Be honest, be relatively polite, and be yourself, that's all I ask.