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333 sats \ 2 replies \ @elvismercury 11 May \ on: journal-001 mostly_harmless
Wrt writing, here's my current struggle.
For the last three years I've done a story a week. Some of these have been really good. Some have been okay. Many, recently, have been shit, just awful. I can't seem to find anything to be excited about, and if you're not excited it shows.
And then I look at my daily logs, and there's so much that I'm excited about. Like, bursting with things. Without a moment's hesitation I'll toss off hundreds of words full of energy and life. Yet when I am purposefully framing the act as "It is time now to produce an interesting piece" what emerges is dead. Something about the intention drains the blood and joy from it.
The spirit of play seems important. The difference between work and play, even when the actions themselves are the same. I'm trying to figure this out. But it seems very easy to look in the wrong place, solve the wrong problem.
For the last three years I've done a story a week. Some of these have been really good. Some have been okay. Many, recently, have been shit, just awful. I can't seem to find anything to be excited about, and if you're not excited it shows.
Do you not share them because writing them with the intention of sharing would change how you write them?
Something about the intention drains the blood and joy from it.
This so much. I think I need to keep a (physical) notebook and write down these fleeting little nuggets of wisdom I sometimes feel I have, just so I can check if I still feel the same way about them in the following days.
I also get the sense that sometimes my emotions are so volatile that I feel like a different person, like someone else who sometimes feels better or worse than my 'normal self.'
How can you like what you wrote a few days ago when you don’t even feel like it was you who wrote it?
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Do you not share them because writing them with the intention of sharing would change how you write them?
Mostly for the "mode" reason I mentioned to you here. I have noticed that I feel deeply vulnerable and at-risk for certain things.
I don't mind putting myself out there, like now. Something beautiful in that, important even. But fiction feels different, feels like inviting the grossest part of the world to inject venom into me. It's like my fiction self is my true, unguarded self. It's possible I may one day become so hard, or so unconquerable, that this will no longer pose a threat, but that feels as far away as becoming a god.
How can you like what you wrote a few days ago when you don’t even feel like it was you who wrote it?
You're close to an answer, I think.
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