Am I Still a Good (Process) Writer?
Jul. 19th, 2025 02:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
genderjumperPoking 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.
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.
Re: Process and Writing
Date: 2025-07-27 07:53 pm (UTC)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
Date: 2025-07-27 08:02 pm (UTC)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
Date: 2025-07-27 08:50 pm (UTC)