Sometimes I don't know if people understand how I feel about my writing career.

There are those that think I find myself amazing because I critique others (harshly sometimes) and they never witness me criticizing myself. I also tend to go over the top making stuff look epic, just because... I DO have the dream of it becoming official. I have the sites, this journal, the "posters"... it all adds up to me think I'm hot shit..right?

Then there's those that know me much better. They're subject to occasional bitching and moaning when I feel like a loser or something discourages me. Basically, they see the downs as well as the ups. They hear/read me venting, saying things I don't mean when I'm unsure of myself, or when something temporarily rips away at my confidence. Mainly it's my best friend Kate that gets this stuff in heavy dosage, and let me tell you, there've been times when she wanted to explode, not being able to convince me that I wasn't such a lame-ass.

Then there's my perception of the situation. I go through such a spectrum of feelings about my work that I KNOW when I'm having an up or a down, and I know how I really feel, I just never write about it because I figure nobody is cultivating real opinions about it. But, it turns out maybe they are. If I say something critical, it can sometimes be taken as "I hate myself". Or, if I say something positive, someone thinks "Christ, she's self-involved." I don't have the biggest amount of chronic readers, but it's still a goal to me to have everyone knowing how I work and why I say or do certain things.


So, I guess I start here.

I don't make up elaborate stories because I think they'll work, or make me money. It's my goal, but I do not THINK or EXPECT anything. I've written for five years, whether anybody liked it, because it fascinated me and made me do something with my life. I had a really shitty time in middle school. My gothic reputation started, people picked on me, I was self-injurious, hopeless, and I wanted to escape the real world, because it sucked, and I meant nothing in it. It wasn't until 8th grade that I made up SELS and became obsessed with developing and writing it. That branched out to a couple other things (KNNNN, The Staircase). I didn't know if this had anything to do with me rising from that stupid whole I'd dug and people were burying me in, but it was happening, and I don't recall many differences between 8th grade and freshman year.

So, I just kept up with that and got more and more into things. The idea of Crystal Palace basically flung itself on me, with the dreams and discovering the tapes and all that stuff. Suddenly the comic was born, then Dorian. You don't think you're ever going to get an idea again and you wonder how you did it before, but then things just come to you. Gwen Stefani said something similar about her music career. She cutely calls the sudden inspiration "magic".

Quite obviously, my lifelong obsession with fiction, and all of this story business made me realize this must be my calling, or some shit. And instinctively, I treated everything officially, because I just wanted to see it at its best. It had nothing to do with how good I thought it was, just that it was possible to present it that way and it made me excited.

Subjectively, I enjoy my writing. Nobody who writes an idea thinks their idea sucks; they thoroughly enjoy it or they wouldn't be executing it in the first place. Nobody can deny that sometimes when things are going well on a project, they think stuff like "this is so awesome". But I know, and I'm sure you know, that thinking that way 24/7 is setting you up for disaster.

First of all, it's a dead end. If you really think you're that cool, what's your next goal? Johnny Depp said it best, "being completely satisfied with your work is like the death of an [artist]". The minute I say something is really good inside my head, I immediately remember the motto "too good to be true" and look for problems. It's not because I want it to be bad, I just want to make sure I'm not overlooking problems. Everything means so much to me that to be any less than it can is like ruining the whole thing. I fix what isn't broken. There has to be more to do. Something needs smoothing. And this can go on and on and on. If I stop and realize a problem, yes, it irks me, but later I'm grateful. It doesn't suddenly mean I dislike the whole idea or want to give up. It just means there is a problem.

Second, being too impressed with your own work just makes it even harder when a normal complication arises. Critique is an amazing source for fixing your problems, yet people get fat off of sugary comments and come critique, they're beating their fists into the ground like a child and making some excuse why it's the "attacker" that has the problem. What's worse is the very people, never encouraging growth, agree. It makes ME want to beat my fists like a child when a critic comments on a celebrated piece of work and the others will make the pathetic, bias, unsupported by facts claim that they must be a fucking loser. "She doesn't like your drawing? She must be a horrible artist and she's just jealous! And guess what else! I bet she's fat!" Why is it that a disagreement strips someone of all their merits? What is wrong with a completely civilized, talented, level-headed person thinking you or your work has faults? It's wrong because the faults pointed out become all too real unless you can find some reason why the owner of such claims musn't understand you or your subject. I've been on both sides of this silly little issue, so I know what it's like to feel like a normal, intelligent human being and get tackled because what I said wasn't positive enough.

My work is not beyond comprehension from the outside. I know that there are people on the opposition who're very smart, and I care about their opinion. I care about everyone's opinion. You can't mature until you do. Writing is about you in many ways, but in others, it's not. This goal seems to be misunderstood, that I want to serve my readers. But the point of writing; the point of SPEAKING is to transfer ideas. I don't want my world to be mine, I want it to be someone else's that they'll fall in love with, the way I've fallen in love with many ideas that don't belong to me. Think of how much it'd suck if Walt Disney, or Gaston Leroux, or any writer you admire didn't give a ding-dangle shit what they shared and who liked it. Would they even be around?

Then there are the "real world" issues. The fact that any writer at any caliber is going to get their ration of rejection-letter wallpaper. It's mandatory, it's a test of your persistence. The business isn't fair. I just found out about a fairly simple fantasy story making the New York Times Bestseller's List, only because it was written by a 12-year-old. Luck is real. Look at Stephenie Meyer. Is she a great writer? No, but she wrote what sold; romance for a bunch of pathetic love-less teenagers. The world is unpredictable, and criteria for success is beyond any of us. You enter the writing business blind-folded, really. However well you think you've done, there's usually someone better. If you don't know who that someone is, it probably means you just don't know enough about your subject. I own up to not knowing enough, because there's simply too much to know.

Hopefully that explains why I try to think neutrally even if I love my ideas. I'm one person, and nobody knows how I compare to anyone else, if there even is a way to compare. People try to tell me that I'm young and prolific, that lots of people don't do all the things I do, but you don't know that for certain. Nobody besides those people that tell me even know that I do what I do, which means there are others gathering around a different writer, assuring him/her that people like me don't exist. That isn't fair.

It's just plainly ignorant to think you ever have the upper hand in a situation. I want to avoid being arrogant and falling flat on my face. I want to accept my situation, that I'm 19, broke, have nothing but lots of fanfiction and a few ideas with potential that can't be measured, and no matter what, it takes lots of work and a love for working to get anywhere. That's objectivity.

In the mean time, I give myself healthy critique, I work things out when I'm feeling like total shit. I love to get readers, and just to know that they're taking the time out of their life to actually read words I wrote to convey stuff in my head that's important to me. I nearly depend on feedback, to know how everything outside of my brain is reacting to what it's made. I like being told that I'm good at what I do and I have a chance, and I agree that I have a chance. I take everything one step at a time though.

And, if there's anything that helps the most, it's honesty, in a form that treats me like a normal flawed human being with feelings, and a goal that isn't certain to happen, no matter how badly anyone wants it to. When you understand that, your feedback becomes so powerful.