Thursday, 04 June 2009

• Writer Queasiness

  I'm scared. Not a full-blown "I'm scared out of my wits and can't think or move or do anything", but an "I can't control what people think about my stories and I don't know what to do" scared.

  I love to write, and I want people to read what I've written, but there's this mental block that my fear of man has placed inside me, murmuring to me, "What if they don't like it. What if they don't understand where I am coming from? What if the story is a complete flop? What if the characters are unrelatable/unbelievable?" I am acutely aware of the fact that I have no control over what people think. Normally, that doesn't bother me. So what if some one thinks I'm odd...I like being slightly abnormal.  But my stories...

  All you writers out there will know what I mean. Any one who has given of themselves to a project that is then sent out to the real world will know what I mean.  Even those of you who submitted applications for jobs and colleges will understand.  How will this product be received? And the more effort a person puts into the end product, the more it becomes a piece of themselves, and the more stress there is when he or she finally relinquishes control.

  As I mentioned before, I'm meeting with one of my writer friends tonight to swap stories and discuss writing subjects. I managed to finish the short story (all 28 pages of it) that is really a portion of the backstory for another story. The beginning pace is very different from the ending pace. The end stops rather abruptly, and at I found I slipped into "information overload" mode in the climax (isn't a climax the action? How can you be overloading information if you're in action? Well...if both of my main characters are intellectual scholars...), so we'll see what KB has to say. She is one of only two people outside of my family that I would feel comfortable reading my stories.  Or so I thought.

  Now I'm getting the jitters.  It's something like the way I feel before I perform. Little flutters in my stomach (could also be hunger pangs, actually, it's about that time...uh, beside the point. Sorry), my thoughts running up and down the story in my mind, looking for ways to quickly improve it in the little time I have before I "submit" it to my reading board. I can think of all kinds of ways to improve it, but not in the spare spare time I have today. Most of the edits involve major changes to accomodate more action, more dialogue, more information overload (although something tells me I should only say what needs to be said for this short story's purpose, not tell all the back story that will also be included in the big story, and in the numerous other stories about this land that are floating around in my head).

  "No," I tell myself severely, "Let KB give her fresh perspective on it. You've been too heavily involved in this, especially in the past week. You're even forgetting to capitalize Gryphon at this point. Let it go, and relax. You know KB will tell you what needs to be changed."

  So, to get my mind off the tightness in my gut, and the beating of my heart, I need to look at something else. Distraction is a great way to get rid of queasiness. I guess, though, it only postpones the queasiness, or allows it to build in suspense for another few hours. 

  My choice of distraction is reading. Unfortunately, RR hasn't posted any new chapters since yesterday, and I haven't ordered my school texts yet. Perhaps I will plot out my next story, one that will actually have fun and be all about the adventure (and contains certain fantasy cliches that are so much fun to write, even if they've been done a thousand times before).

  Deep Breath. Run through your Jedi Breathing Exercises (regular breathing exercises made more interesting with the fact that they are used by Corran Horn, or Leia Organa Solo, or Luke Skywalker in the books). And go eat your lunch.

  • 12:43 PM
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