Am I Still a Good (Process) Writer?

[genderjumper]

Poking at my resume, I looked up an old blog and was surprised to find it only contained a couple or three dozen entries. I ended up reading the first five entries or so and skimming the rest. And it got me thinking about how my mind used to race and interconnect ideas well enough to dash off 1000-word entries like that. (Not that I was ever much of a blogger... my output was too sporadic and often went far too long.)

I'm not surprised that my "voice" is so different -- the early entries sound so unlike me! But also, I had to ask myself if I keep telling myself and others what a good writer I am simply out of habit. What if that changed after my last illness? Or COVID? Or general disillusionment? As Janet Jackson might say, "What have you done for me lately?"

I think it'll take a few months to answer, but I needed to put the question out there.

Comments

[numb3r_5ev3n]

It's not just you. Depending on how far back I go, my old blog posts read like they were written by someone else entirely.

[flamingsword]

Remember when I freaked out at the landlady over Chinese New Year? I was thinking about that the other day, how it never would have happened if I’d been on the anti anxiety and sleep meds already and had been able to manage my anxiety. So much about who we think we are is circumstantial and subject to change. 🤷

Process and Writing

[nyyki]

This is, from what I can tell, normal -- after my former roommate moved in, she, lanalucy, started editing my writing, and with the exception of the current stuff, as in one side story for the second novel in the Deja Vu trilogy and the third book of it, along with two erotica short stories and a short story in the "People Among Us" series I'm writing, plus a historical story set in an SCA environment, it'd currently down to technical writing stuff. The SCA story keeps getting pushed back, because it's way early work for me, and this means there's a possibility editing it will be way slow.

Writing is a muscle, and not only the physical ones that make hands work, it's also a creative muscle too. I know the different runs through the creativity boot camp I've done have made big improvements, but writing on a daily or semi-daily basis is what's making a huge difference in what I get on the virtual page. I totally get that I may be atypical when it comes to this stuff, but I refuse to believe there is much of anything exceptional about me that someone else couldn't achieve also (hush, flamingsword, I'm not all that, with or without a bag of chips[I hope they're the ones worth a grand or more each, that would be so cool]).

Oh, and hello, you're given full access to my journal entries. Anyone our mutual friend considers to be a source of good hugs is someone worth interacting with.

Re: Process and Writing

[flamingsword]

Tell me more about these expensive chips? Are they fried in truffle oil and dusted with gold leaf or something?

Re: Process and Writing

[nyyki]

No, they're plastic or metal. You trade them for their cash value at the cashier window.

Re: Process and Writing

[flamingsword]

Huh. Today’s pain day must be worse than I thought if I’m missing really unsubtle secondary meanings like that. I may have to do something about it. 😾

Re: Process and Writing

[nyyki]

I've been told I can be dry in my delivery, to the point that I should not tell jokes in the wild or I could do severe damage to the biosphere. And any time a person's pain is under two stars I make allowances for someone's ability to catch the nuance of things I say.

Re: Process and Writing

[flamingsword]

I have vaped a small amount of CBD and delta 8, and my pain is now ignorable, but still a 6 if I think about it. I probably should have done that earlier. I'm a bit useless today, and should stick to the kind of homework and socializing that I can do without a functioning processor. Which I should go do now, more's the pity.

Re: Process and Writing

[nyyki]

Pity that the days of a math coprocessor are long past. Be well.

Re: Process and Writing

[genderjumper]

All valid points and reminders. I keep having ideas for short-form essays and I think I'd do myself a favor if I could leverage that into actual writing, just for the sake of having written.

Hello, and thank you for your patient greetings! Yes, flamingsword and I are very dear friends and they've been encouraging me to follow you. In the long long ago, when I did use LJ, it was supposed to be my writing journal, but it mostly turned into personal processing stuff. I don't have as much to process these days (or hadn't until recently), but I don't have a feeling for what else I want to be writing. But your encouragement and example might spark some inspirations!

Re: Process and Writing

[nyyki]

Steven King, who for the most part I don't read save for one major exception, contends that the most frightening thing to him is a blank page. Inspiration is the gold mine (or maybe even a latinum mine), so writing down your basic thoughts and using that as a launching off point can be way useful. Also, we read in a linear way, but that doesn't mean you have to write that way.

Have fun, and well met.

Re: Process and Writing

[genderjumper]

I've never lacked for ideas, and I've been writing them down for my entire adult life! The only real training I've had as a writer (as opposed to an academic writer) was doing NaNoWriMo a few times, and that showed me how fast I could write when I set my mind to it.

The largest WIP I have is a nonfiction existential guide to caregiving; when I set my mind to it, I can put thousands of words down a week. The trouble is once I'm out of the habit, it can be hard to get back to.

Re: Process and Writing

[nyyki]

Yes, writing very much is a habit. I keep my current project and one or two others up on my computer so I can drop into them immediately. I mentioned the one exception -- King's book On Writing, and that was so useful -- for one thing it spurred me to write more dialog, to the point that it's a majority in my work these days.

A copious resource of ideas and notes is very useful.

Re: Process and Writing

[genderjumper]

I've always thought so. But now that I'm officially Middle Aged, I am aggravated by my lack of meaningful output so far and the way that COVID and burnout have slowed down my brain. I worry about how that will affect my output, but I also know that I won't know until I do. Just gotta get the habit going again. Being more active on DW is a step in that direction, I think.

Re: Process and Writing

[nyyki]

Remember, there are a lot of successful writers who wrote their first book past middle age and senior citizen and into the Elderly category. I ran into something a year or so ago about a woman who wrote an effective memoir at 97, her first publication. I've got a folder of stuff I'd love to finish, and a directory on my music computer of musical ideas -- I'd love to complete them, but I know that isn't likely. And when I'm writing something I'm writing that, and any other ideas get new files for them, because the thing I'm working on is my Now. So, drop an idea here and we can brainstorm ideas for what you can do with it. Note also that what I toss into the air isn't burdened with any expectation that it'll be used, either in part or toto -- it may be for naught, but it might spur some different idea and take you down a different road.

Re: Process and Writing

[genderjumper]

Oh, I'm not thinking in terms of great achievements or visibility, I don't think. I just want to know that I've created something useful.

But I'm increasingly at peace with the ways my life has been a work of art, and if only a few can see it that's still better than none.

It's much more the existential angst of labels: am I still calling myself a writer whether I write or not? Which is adjacent to some actual stress about career trajectory as someone who has been out of the tradition capitalist game more than I've been in it. But it gets navel-gazey pretty fast, so I just throw the question out to the universe and go find something else to think about.

Re: Process and Writing

[nyyki]

Labels are how things are sorted into boxes, drawers, and other holding areas. You are, and that's the important thing, or as one of my characters said in the second modern fantasy novel, "Be, then do accordingly; leave the armchair quarterbacking to others, because it isn't really any of your business anyway."

Every single thing I write is for me, and I kind of hope someone else will like it, but it satisfies me to get these ideas, scenarios, and characters on paper.

Make sense?

Re: Process and Writing

[genderjumper]

Abso.

[flamingsword]

You also had spread your creative output across a lot of different places. Classes taught, two different blogs, lots of social facilitation, work projects that required brainpower. So don’t judge your former self on a thirty-ish episode run. Most shows don’t even make it that far.

You do sound like a different person now - because you are? That’s what personal growth means. And you kind of know that, but you're maybe thinking in from how this old blog project might look to an outsider? I hope the résumé gets the traction it needs to, to put you into a playful and ethical work environment.

[genderjumper]

Oh, I do believe I'm a different person and have grown, this was more about self-perception and labels. What if I got so used to labeling myself a writer that I forgot to write and didn't know it? That kinda thing.

But I was feeling low that day and I'm better now.

I still think I should find my new voice. Free had something very different to say.