Ah, yes, the beloved love-hate relationship writers have with their work. I've had people absolutely love pieces I've done that I felt are completely horrible and then turn around and something I've poured heart and soul into and tried so hard to bring across meaning they toss aside and go, "Eh." This then rips my heart out and I whine about it for a few days to IRL friends who know I'm neurotic about my work.
On the other hand, it's really hard for me, as a writer, to go back to the strictly reader mindset and think things are completely planned because I know sometimes my characters springs something on me and I go "Wait, where the hell did this come from?" and they look at me and shrug and expect me to write it anyway. With this, I have often had to scratch my head when people make comments like the above where people don't care because they're writing crap. That's what revisions are for.
The other common misconception is that writers just sit down, throw something in a word processor and call it a book. If it were that easy, we'd all be writers! It takes time and attention and sometimes bashing your face against the desk in frustration and passing things to a trusted beta before sending it along to the publisher. I've had friends go "What are you THINKING?" and redline the CRAP out of things, but when it's published, it's damned good.
It's also disheartening when people don't understand that, like everyone, we have our moments where we're SINGING and other moments where the things we write feel like we're balding a cat with tweezers. Some days the muses flow and other days they sit back and file their nails while we look at them and make obscene gestures.
Now that I've rambled, I'll step down. I understand completely and had never thought blogging that it was crap could have such dire consequences for the readers. Thanks for enlightening me.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2008-04-10 09:55 am (UTC)On the other hand, it's really hard for me, as a writer, to go back to the strictly reader mindset and think things are completely planned because I know sometimes my characters springs something on me and I go "Wait, where the hell did this come from?" and they look at me and shrug and expect me to write it anyway. With this, I have often had to scratch my head when people make comments like the above where people don't care because they're writing crap. That's what revisions are for.
The other common misconception is that writers just sit down, throw something in a word processor and call it a book. If it were that easy, we'd all be writers! It takes time and attention and sometimes bashing your face against the desk in frustration and passing things to a trusted beta before sending it along to the publisher. I've had friends go "What are you THINKING?" and redline the CRAP out of things, but when it's published, it's damned good.
It's also disheartening when people don't understand that, like everyone, we have our moments where we're SINGING and other moments where the things we write feel like we're balding a cat with tweezers. Some days the muses flow and other days they sit back and file their nails while we look at them and make obscene gestures.
Now that I've rambled, I'll step down. I understand completely and had never thought blogging that it was crap could have such dire consequences for the readers. Thanks for enlightening me.