Standard Livejournal Entry
[mood:
|languorous]
I have been soooo lazy this week. Seriously, once I finished the Technologist segments that were giving me trouble I just never got back to it. Then I sketched out another Mustang Gemini issue and never worked on it, then I thought of a random new short and just never wrote it. Plus I'm sitting on a comic idea while my drawing skills atrophy.
Instead I've been watching TV, reading other blogs, and splitting time between Grand Theft Auto and City of Heroes. This has become Standard Operating Procedure. Go me.
Plus I've been thinking about some serious Deep Shit for the past week - issues of life, death, love and whether or not we are all just morally-equivalent cosmic meat. That kinda puts a damper on my usual mental circus of action-packed gaslamp fantasy worlds, spacefaring cowgirls and distopian metahuman empires.
Give me attention or I will shoot this Pokémon™
Part of the problem is I'm not particularly motivated to do creative work at all at the moment. The initial rush of the sense of personal acomplishment that comes with "art for it's own sake" has worn a little thin. If I don't get any positive feedback - the sense that someone somewhere has at least read and acknowledged the work - then why bother posting at all? I can just as easily appreciate my own work on my hard drive as I can on a distant nameless free server.Several people have mentioned in real life that they enjoy some of the things I've written here, but the biggest, most time-consuming works have gotten very few comments online. I don't like to be a counter-hit queen, but that's disappointing. (Counter Hit Queen, by the way, would be a great name for a Freddie Mercury tribute band.)
So for those of you who check in from time to time, what do you think, huh? Technologist good? Bad? Meh? Mustang Gemini interesting? Toss me a frickin' bone here.
This will be my last LJ "poor me" post. I promise.
9 comments:
Well, aside from the latest piece (which I haven't had time to read yet), I've already told you what I think about your online writings. If I don't comment on it here, well, it's because I don't want to sound like the judges on Iron Chef. "Mmm, this is very good. This makes me think of pine needles in winter." That sort of praise is good from people you don't know, but somehow I feel that if a friend's going to say something, he should say more.
You should keep writing, though. Or drawing. Or both. If it helps your motivation, remember that you have a project to do for me, and it has a deadline (admittedly a distant one, but still), and I'll kill you if you don't get it done on time.
There. Did that help? ^_-
True. I have a similar policy with Fables, as we've talked about. Unless I have some specific question of critique it's not worth posting, since you're already familiar with my take on the series as a whole.
I guess I'm just fishing for some reassurance here that what I'm writing doesn't suck. Or confirmation that it does so I can get better at it.
I am working on your project, by the way. However, your willingness to kill over an arbitrary deadline is suspect at best.
Well, I can tell you that what you've posted doesn't suck. Some bits are stronger than others, of course, but there's a lack of suckitude, yeah. It's enjoyable and although some entries are too long for me to read right away, I always look forward to you posting a new one.
As for the rest, well, you know that death is my standard threat in almost all situations, and you know, too, that I hardly ever mean it.
Well...I can't say whether or not your writing is good. I'm not exactly what someone would call "a good writer."
I'm a good business writer. But creative writing...not exactly my strong suit.
I do check back here every few days for continuations of the CoB game world. I'm something of a junkie.
Also...isn't that gun a squirt gun? Is water really a threat to a stuffed animal?
In the end, Marc, the only real test of good writing is whether or not the reader enjoys it. Grammar, diction, varying complexity of sentence structure, spelling, symbolism, characterization: these are the things that, when used properly, will, in theory, make writing more enjoyable and thereby more good (Yes, yes, I know...), but at the end of the day, if you don't pick up on that stuff, you don't (consciously) pick up on that stuff. If you can't use those tactics in your own writing, then you can't use those tactics in your own writing.
That does not make you any less qualified to determine the quality of writing. Because there is no objective, Platonic Ideal of good writing. What it all comes down to is just this: did you enjoy it or did you not enjoy it? And that's something you are, in fact, qualified to judge.
I too have been reading, and I'm interested in where things are going.
I, like Marc, haven't posted simply because I don't feel like I have anything substantial to contribute. I think my comments whould look something like, "Cool! That gun blows all SORTS of stuff up! Way to go gun!"
If you enjoy the writing, keep it up. We're reading it. If you don't enjoy it, just make sure the mass death finale is fun to read.
I haven't read the fiction you post though I do check this blog every so often. It's one of those, don't know how I found it but it keeps brining me back.
If the lack of comments is bothersome perhaps it might be a good idea to pursue getting the story published. that way you don't have to worry about comments and there might be some money in it for you.
Marc: Glad to hear you're into it. As Jason said, it doesn't take an expert to know if you like something or not. As for the gun, it is a piston-spring compressed air pellet gun, most notable for its appearance in the "Fists of Furry" scene in Felt Ambition
Eric: "We're reading it." That's the heart of what compels me to post. Good to know. Mass death finale, huh? Hmmmm...
Amichai: Thanks for stopping by. Publishing? A distant goal perhaps. For now, this is just a hobby horse. Jason is the one with literary ambition.
Christ, man! Don't tell people I have ambition; you'll totally ruin my rep.
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