Thank you to all who’ve offered support and understanding through this—I’m thinking that it’s not an unfamiliar place to be to those who need to write.
Basically, I can separate my sudden anxiety attack down to the following elements:
1. Lack of creative output. Although obviously I’ve been writing religiously, I don’t feel that it’s been “creative” writing. My interest and skill if any is in writing fiction. While I fully comprehend that reality must enter fiction through experience—even that which is science fiction or surrealism must be based on some factual knowledge gained in our own lives, I have always written stories about other people’s lives. Make-believe people. Not my husband, my father, my sisters, my friends—just people I’ve made up, or have lived temporarily through them. This brought me to settle upon Spinning, the weblog, as a detriment to creativity when I found that I did not want to even look at the stories that I was once so anxious to work on.
2. That said, my feeling about the previous post I mentioned wherein Ben wondered about how much of himself he chooses to put into his work became a contradiction to what I blithely told him was a necessary part of writing. Suddenly I see that I have not been creative, but merely reportive in my writing (don’t bitch about reportive—it’s the first sign of creativity I’ve had lately and I’m keeping it as a word). Back in October when I first started Spinning, many of the entries were story beginnings, or literary analysis, or at the very least, like this very series, views of the writing process. Somewhere I wandered off into too much reality, which is not my style of writing, nothing I’m good at or choose to do, and more importantly, no one cares about nor needs to know about my moods or whether or not I have a Christmas Tree.
While I do feel that something more than cursory personality traits hidden within the work is what will make Spinning more interesting reading, I need not overwhelm this journal with the person rather than the writer. There are many, many more personal journals online that are so very much better—written by people who live much more interesting lives as well as tell about them in a more humorous or touching manner.
3. If I’m to continue Spinning—which there is no doubt that I will—I will need to more closely consider what I’m posting. My self-imposed deadlines of giving you plenty to read on a daily basis should not overwhelm the basic intention of writing-creatively-fiction, both as a personal exercise in self-improvement of voice and style, as a daily discipline of practice, and with the intention of sharing the process in a way that would be entertaining and interesting to others afflicted with the obsession to write.
There have been doubts as a writer before—many, many doubts. But I suppose I’ve never been as open with them before to other people. The good thing—and newly discovered side effect—of a journal is to take a more intelligent and critical approach of understanding the writer as well as what is written. Self-psychoanalysis combined with self-critique of one’s work cannot be a bad thing.
So please forgive my sharing this last bit of myself with you, and I will strive either for a more professional writer’s journal, or rekindle the creative flame and keep it fed to bonfire proportions, and burning alongside this wooden stove of homespun journalizing
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
What you’ve written here, in these last several posts, is so true, and I think a lot of creative writers who also blog can relate to it. I struggle with myself over similar things all the time…I’ve had several blogs which always veer off into the personal (including my Christmas tree stories) even though I really want to be that kind of impersonal writer-blogger who offers relevant links and motivational thoughts. I try, but my personal stuff always comes through…so I go away and start another blog, somewhere else, and the same thing happens. But, like you, my creative writing is always, always about make-believe people. I do not take from my personal life. I don’t use my own family or my own experiences. I make things up. I don’t even like reading fiction that’s too obviously drawn from reality; it seems more like a therapy exercise than a novel. Yet I find personal, homespun blogs fascinating…I just wish I didn’t feel such a need to keep my own version of one! You have given me a lot to think about. I wish you well in your writing!
While I’ve never seriously thought of myself as a creative writer, I have noticed that the time I used to spend writing interactive fiction has increasingly been taken up by blogging. At some point, when I feel the need to get back into IF authorship, I will do it… and maybe that means I’ll update my own blog less frequently, or spend less time reading my students’ blogs… it’s important to find a balance that works for you.
Personally, for me, the most enjoyable parts of blogs are the personal bits. I like getting to know someone (well as much as you can) through this medium. I actually do think if you read someone’s blog everyday, you know them to a certain extent. I can see what you are saying, that it takes some focus away from the type of writing you want to do … do you find it helps with your creativity at all?