friends romans flist people: to post or not to post?

[lobelia321]

I posted this post about whatever happened to my writing the other day, and birdgerl (or however she spells herself these days) suggested that I try finishing something. This seemed to me very good therapy. She said, write something, finish it, get used to writing crap, and do not post. Her idea was that it was good to get out of the feedback-trap and just get back into the swing of things by writing crap and not angsting.

All of this is very good advice. Except I discovered one thing about myself: I miss writing, but more specifically (and I hadn't realised this when I did that other post): I miss posting. I can't write crap just for myself! I need to share the shit!

So what I did is this: today I sat down and said to myself, "self", I said, "I'll give you one hour and in that one hour you must finish something. Egal was." So the hour went by and then another hour went by and now it's half past ten in the evening and I am not finished! And to get my mind off things I decided, fic help me, not to write Dudley/Draco but to write a backstory for how Karl met Dominic (backstory to my k/d opus, never posted, much angsted). I thought -- well, never mind what I thought, it was probably all nonsense because I just couldn't hurry through it in one hour. I gave myself 1/4 hour for the set-up and another 1/4 hour for their first meeting and so forth, but I've only just got up to the first meeting and am on page ten and, as I said, it's half past ten so I'm going to go to bed and read Ursula Le Guin.

But I want to finish! I am convinced that birdgrrhl's advice is sound and that I need to finish but I feel anguished about going to bed without posting the unfinished crap I've already written.

So here's the question: Is it better (more therapeutic?) to post the half-baked text and get up determined tomorrow to finish and finish and post part two? Or is this tempting fate and should I leave it on my hard drive and finish it tomorrow and post it then?

And should I hurry on through or take my time and linger?

I have already condensed some of the back-backstory. I have pages and pages of all this stuff and I've distilled it down. But still!

So:
[Poll #620557]

Comments

[wait before posting]

[ukcalico.livejournal.com]

I say this only because I've done this, I've done the posting-unfinished stuff, and then I angst about it until morning, and then I get up early and check to see how it's been received, and it tends to not have been received quite like I wanted it to be *because* I haven't finished it yet and so it's still very different to the reader than it is to the writer, AND, then I get demoralised about the whole thing and shelve it.

But that may be just me. :)

Re: [wait before posting]

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I am positive you are right. It's the whole 'it's not received as you wanted it to' bit, and yes, readers can't read my mind, they can only read the words on the page. And already, upon waiting, I wasn't satisfied with the words on the page any longer. So I'm going to revise! Which kind of defeats the purpose of writing shit but it is so difficult to write shit! I'm not sure I can do it.

Also, tiredness solved the question for me. I stared at the screen, waiting for poll results to appear, and then I turned off the computer and went to bed!

Thank you for your very sound advice.

Re: [wait before posting]

[ukcalico.livejournal.com]

it is so difficult to write shit!

LOL. Hmm. Is there a definition for "shit"? What are you aiming for? Because I have to say, I'm not sure I'd want to read shit, yours or anyone else's. I only ideally want to read things that people have executed to the best of their ability - setting out to underachieve makes no sense to me.

Otoh, if the point is not to write badly, but to write without criticising as you go along, *that* makes sense as a writing exercise. But if I *were* doing that, I absolutely wouldn't post it. (I might finish it, let it settle for a day or two, then rewrite it piece by piece until it was of a standard worth posting - but only after running it through a beta, etc. and giving it the care and attention that I give to a real story.)

Re: [wait before posting]

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Yes, I started wondering about definitions, too. It all seemed so easy when Birdgerrlh first gave me this task. She said, 'write crap, finish it, do not post it.' The first thing I discovered was that I wanted to post. The second thing I discovered was that I couldn't write crap. That leaves 'finishing' as the only manageable bit of that piece of advice for me!!! And I can't even manage that! So maybe I should just ditch the crap part, eh? Because once I ditch the writing-for-my-eyes-only part, the writing-crap part automatically goes, too. You are right. Why post crap? The crap is strictly for one's own eyes only.

I have no idea how to define crap! I can define other people's but actually, maybe the whole notion of 'setting out' to write crap is daft and a paradox.

I shall ask birdgrrl about this!

Re: [wait before posting]

[birdgerhl.livejournal.com]

okay, so i can only say how it works for me. i found that i was so bogged down with the pressure to write something "good" that i wasn't writing at all. by removing the means by which my writing was being "judged", both by other people (by making a decision to not post it publicly), and by myself (by telling myself that it didn't matter if i wrote absolute crap as long as i wrote *something*), i managed to dig myself out of that particular hole.

i personally still wouldn't *publicly* share anything that i didn't think was "good". having said that, i am relieved to note that my "crap" isn't actually a whole lot different from the stuff i have agonised over, and in some instances it's better - far less precious and more direct. i also had some self-censorship issues goin' on that were out of the window as soon as i decided not to post what i was writing. but i think that lobelia and myself are possibly writing for different reasons.

b.x :)

Re: [wait before posting]

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Birdg, I think we are (writing for different reasons). And my self-censor isn't so much about the feedback; it's mostly me, criticising myself endlessly. It makes no difference whether I post or not: I still berate myself and find crappiness in my writing. But it's the fact that you finished stuff that drew me into your method!

I just tried finishing another thing again. I gave myself 40 minutes to write a four-part thing, ten minutes per part. By the time I got to the end of part three, I just lost interest. If I can't linger and delve, then I'm not enjoying it. So I've realised another thing: finishing for the sake of finishing is maybe also not my thing.

ARGH! I'm in such a fucking funk!!

[azewewish.livejournal.com]

What Calico said. *grins* Wait to post, then you're only posting your vision, not someone else's.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Wait to post, then you're only posting your vision, not someone else's.
Heh, as you know, I did wait (mainly because I got tired and my eyes fluttered shut as I stared at the screen, waiting for poll results to appear so I just went to bed -- and of course, this morning I woke up and realised that what I had written was in part all wrong and needed to be revised -- and this defeats the object of writing shit, I know, but as I said to Calico above: it's so hard writing shit! I may make a post about it.)

But what do you mean about 'only my vision and not anybody else's'? I am very intrigued.

[azewewish.livejournal.com]

But what do you mean about 'only my vision and not anybody else's'? I am very intrigued.

Well, when you post something unfinished, you're getting feedback & opinions on something that's not finished, which can, in turn, influence what you were going to write. Therefore, it becomes a sort of fic by committee, as opposed to something uniquely yours.

I'm all about hearing opinions for things that I've written, but I want what I've written to be mine, and not someone else's version of what they think I should write.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Oh, now I understand what you mean! (Duh.) This makes absolute sense to me! And it is easy to be swayed! But not necessarily right in the terms of the fic.

Don't you ever angst, Brenda?? Sometimes it seems to me as if the stories just flow out of your pen although I know that's not true.

[azewewish.livejournal.com]

Damn that LJ for eating comments!! *shakes fist*

Um, short answer? Yes. Of course I angst. I just don't normally do it publicly. But there have been stories where I've ripped them apart, pieced them back together, ripped them apart again, bitched & whined to anyone that would listen, started over again from scratch, bitched some more...and I find those are often just as rewarding as the fics that just flow from my brain. It's just different is all.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Yes. True. Also, I remember you angsting. Now that I am cranking up t'brain.

[dellastarr.livejournal.com]

I'd agree that listening to the feedback can put your writing in someone else's hands, but I miss reading your writing... so selfishly I'd post whatever you have. You'd probably feel better posting when you're ready, not just to satisfy a reader.

Write for you, share with us. Glad you're writing again!!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you, you are so kind!

I'd agree that listening to the feedback can put your writing in someone else's hands,
Aha, so this is perhaps what azewewish meant, I didn't get this. (*is obtuse*)

but I miss reading your writing... so selfishly I'd post whatever you have.
I miss posting. This is what I discovered: I miss the sharing! And I am so moved by people wanting to read what I have written. It's a difficult temptation to withstand! But, as you can see, I have withstood it. This time.

You'd probably feel better posting when you're ready, not just to satisfy a reader.
I think ultimately you're right. But I post not to satisfy readers but to satisfy myself because I love posting! But it's true, if I post something below par I may start post-post angsting.

[birdgerhl.livejournal.com]

*looks stern*

you're supposed to be writing (and finishing) crap and *not* posting it!! to get yourself out of the post-feedback-post loop!!

b.x ;)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Waaaah! *wails* *runs in fear*

I know! I know I'm doing this all wrong! I'm not writing crap for my eyes only! Well, I sort of did (because I did end up not posting), but I'm not finishing crap for my eyes only. And this is because I discovered two things:

a) It's the posting I miss! As I said in this post. So my previous post was misleading because it claimed I miss the writing mainly, which I do, but I miss the writing-and-then-posting, and it is the only thing that will make me finish: knowing I will post. Before slash and the internet, I wrote origfic for my eyes only, and I never finished anything except one story when I was seventeen and my friend made me. See? My friend! It was a kind of 'posting' that made me finish. If I don't post, I will never finish anything. So it was thinking about my previous post and everybody's generous advice that made me realise this. *hides from the lashes of thine whip*

b) This does not address the feedback loop, I realise this. And it also does not address the 'writing shit' task. Which I am failing at! I find it so difficult to write shit! I just can't let go enough to do it! Possibly I set myself the wrong task because I chose to write about two boys whom I love with an absurd passion, and to write shit about them would be blasphemy! I didn't post because basically I fell asleep as I waited for poll results to appear so went to bed. As soon as I woke up, I realised that what I'd written yesterday was all wrong. It's not so much shit in the sense of badly written; in fact, I'm already so enamoured of some of the formulations, that I'm going to find it hard to delete them. But it was wrong in the sense of the characters. The words twisted them into people they are not. So all of this has to be rewritten. Upshot: well, I'm not sure what the upshot is. Either what I wrote yesterday was shit in which case it was good that I didn't post but bad that I didn't finish because your task was to write finished shit. Or what I wrote yesterday was not shit but just wrong in which case it was probably also good that I didn't post because that would have caused me to angst and perhaps I should just drop this exercise and not finish it and instead choose something simpler that I can finish,using a pairing I hate, like Snape/Remus or Dumbledore/McGonagall or Elijah/Viggo.

Your advice sounded so simple and command-like when you first issued it but it is deceptive!! Or perhaps I'm just a truculent bad-bad-pupil.

*runs away*

And sorry I keep mis-spelling your new username. Can't I just call you Nova? *wails*

[birdgerhl.livejournal.com]

Can't I just call you Nova?

bg? :)

i guess it depends *why* you think you are writing, and who you are writing for. i personally don't want to write fanfic anymore, in fact i never particularly wanted to write it to start with. it just got me writing again after a long time of writing nothing at all. what i really want to write is origfic, and i have to kick away the crutches of post-feedback-post before i can get any further. because i know that no-one is going to give a shit about it. hence giving myself a year to write crap, and hopefully, find the beginnings of something worth pursuing in the following year. but that's just me, trying to reclaim a desire to write for *myself*. if the posting/feedback is an intrinsic part of your desire to write for *other people as much as yourself*, then obviously you will feel differently.


b.x :)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Yes, if there is one useful thing I have learned from these postings, and especially from your advice, is that I do want to write not just for myself. I used to want to get back to origfic but I'm not bothered by that any longer. I had a long origifc (have, it's still sitting on my shelf) that was never finished and claimed my passions, and now I have two long fanfics that are sitting on my shelf and claiming my passions and also not bloody finished -- so I have to say that for me, the boundaries have faded fast. Although I agree: they can never go away completely. They may fade from the writer's point of view as the characters but not from the reader's. As you say, there is a ready-made readerdom out there for fanfic.

But the origfic is not my priority right now. It's the posting for others to read.

Also!!! And here's a big question. How do you define crap? Because ukcalico asked me, and I realised I didn't know. It seems obvious at first. Firstly, once I ditch the idea of not-posting the idea of writing-crap automatically has to get ditched as well, because why post crap and who'd want to read it? Secondly, though, and more ontologically, how is crap exactly defined? I can identify crap in other authors' writings but can one actually on purpose set out to write crap? Or is that a paradox?

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Can't I just call you Nova?
bg? :)


Oh, and is that a 'yes'?

[birdgerhl.livejournal.com]

i don't answer to nova anymore, *lol*. call me "bg" if you can't remember how to spell my fun new name!! or even birdgirl will do.

it's not a case of setting out to *deliberately* write crap. it's a case of saying, "I'm going to write something, and if it turns out to be crap, then it doesn't matter, because writing something is better than writing nothing".

at the end of the day, you can re-work a "crap" story and make it "good", or at least "better". you can't re-work a blank page!

b.x :D

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Oh, now I get it! Duh. I mistook your 'bg' for 'big grin' (not for an abbreviation of 'birdgerhl'. It's the acronym trap!

"I'm going to write something, and if it turns out to be crap, then it doesn't matter, because writing something is better than writing nothing".
Okay, this makes sense to me. This is certainly what I try to do in my academic writing. And maybe it's now that I seem to have sloughed off the academic writing block (*knocks wood seventy-eight times*) that I have mind space to get back to the fun fic writing block. But different rules seem to pertain to different types of writing for me. I can write the academic crap but not the fic crap. I just can't bear it when the fic turns out to be crap! With the academic, I look it over and think, okay, this needs revising and another quote here and more evidence there and a more elegant formulation here. With the fic, I am just plunged into despair and have to go away to play the Sims.

[yellow-oranges.livejournal.com]

Because there is not enough Karl!fic in the world!!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

*laughs*

Oh, Karl.