It’s My Blog and I’ll Say What I Want To
Have you heard of remote sensing? I seem to be an expert in remote annoying.
My own personal thoughts on the muse have filtered
down through Lori’s and Victoria’s blogs into the hands of the museless, which means,
at the very least, that I’m going to have to switch the category on the first muse entry to
fanfic [moved again to muses], so the unintended muse war is all in one
place, for fuming reference.
Here I am, not apologizing again. This is my blog and I’m not going to be
diplomatic. If you want diplomacy, Lori’s blog is right there in the link list. I’m not
full of myself; I just happen to have my own opinions. If you don’t like them,
then, as we say in the industry, click off.
Well, that being said, I’ve had an interesting muse-related experience lately.
I used to say I loved all my fic equally, flaws and all. I used to write them, edit
them, then put them down and never look back. It’s not that I wouldn’t edit them
to death, at the time, but I never let them sit for editing reasons. I only put them
aside when the muse flagged (or turned C/7 and refused to finish J/C fic), until
the muse returned.
Recently, however, I reread most of my fic. I still loved them all, and wouldn’t
retouch a word except for misspellings (which I do fix) and repeated uses of the
same word close together (which I don’t bother to fix). There was one exception,
though, Colony, my old novel.
Christine was right about it back when I wrote it,
and if I had the time now, I might do a Lori-scale revision of the thing. It’s so…uneven.
It’s depressing, really - I’m not sure I’d know where to start if I were fixing it.
All I know is that it started dragging in the middle and I gave up reading. If its own
mother can’t read it, it’s got to be pretty bad.
May 10th, 2002 at 5:08 pm
I sometimes wish I were more of a revolutionary. Victoria disagreed with your comments as if they were mine — until I realized that, I actually felt good about my gutsy bucking-the-diplomatic-status-quo, and then… eh.
I have a muse, an editor, and a diplomat — now I just need a revolutionary, and my split personality disorder will be complete. Too bad I can’t afford to hire you to ghost one for me. :P
May 10th, 2002 at 5:10 pm
And I have heard of remote sensing. I knew an INTJ who went to one of the training seminars. Fascinating stuff, in a supernatural kinda way. Thought about writing it into a book.
May 11th, 2002 at 6:42 pm
I’m not full of myself; I just happen to have my own opinions. If you don’t like them, then, as we say in the industry, click off.
Owning your opinions is great. It’s the part where you don’t seem interested in engaging in a discussion about them that baffles me.
I also disagree mightily with your characterization of the word “fun” as useless.
Words are not simply their dictionary definition. To say that they are is oversimplifying. They also have a connotative meaning, which changes with time and location. Language is not static, nor should it be. Why you have such a problem with colloquialism or the changing of the language, I don’t understand.
Could people be more specific in discussing things, choosing their words better? Sure. But I don’t think saying that sometimes I write for amusement or fun, and that I do it out of sheer enjoyment makes my writing any less worthy than that of someone who claims to sweat blood and writes only for some obscure yet allegedly pure motive that, at this moment, is still eluding my understanding.
Dismissing people or their work [the museless?] because they don’t share your philosophy of writing strikes me as counterproductive if one wishes to *encourage* good writing.
Taking the craft of writing seriously doesn’t mean that it can’t or shouldn’t be fun (as in something done for amusement or enjoyment or, in fact, that brings joy). That’s the attitude that’s killing “high” culture in this day and age. If it’s important, it should damn well hurt or be boring, otherwise you’re not learning anything and it’s not worthy.
Feh on that, I say.
~victoria