This blog is useful for a two things.
Complaining and giving me one more reason to type, rather than to write (I hate typing, but I know I, eventually, need to get over that).
It took but two days for the magazine I just recently submitted for to reject my story, which I think is really neat. Most of the time, magazines take ages to get back to you, and the fact that they got back to me so quickly is actually very kind. Well, that, and the fact that they got back to me at all (Amazing how many magazines don't).
I'm not new to rejection, and I'm a pretty apathetic person anyway so worry not, I'm not about to go burn all my notebooks and start a band. But I am having a certain issue with this rejection, and that being that I don't have anything to write at the moment. Normally, I'm always in the midst of a project and, bored/trying to take a moment not to write, I check my email and find rejection letters. I nod, and then resume working on a brand new story.
I don't have that right now, though, and I'm rather, well, down.
Something bizarre with writing is influence, and the measures by which influence affects it. All writing is influenced, be it by personal experience, musical-stimulation, paintings, whatever. Influenced, I mean, simply by the attachment we feel towards something, and the way that corresponds with our creative minds.
But, sometimes, the influence is just far-too great, and the writing that is delivered from it is of absolute trash and borderline plagarism (We all put our spins on things, but can any writer truly deny the ultimate source when it is so obviously present to ourselves?). There is no ruler that can state whether something is of artistic-certainity, or fan-fiction, and it isn't needed. We know when we are simply connecting threads made of the thinnest yarn.
This is what my current block is. It is not that I am "dry" of ideas (I don't really believe in that), but that the only thing I could, potentially, write at the moment is directly inspired from a character from this videogame I've been playing. It's a faceless character, with badly-constructed background story and almost no character, but him, and his appearance (Blue, tattered jacket, no shirt, long, tan scarf, spiky red hair) are swirling in my head.
This happens a lot, and I'd love to write something on the authenticity of videogames, and how they are the most authentic immersion of person-to-art, but I'll save that for something else. I would much rather keep complaining right now.
Basically, I am no novice to writing under supreme influence, and I am very aware that when I do that not only does it turn out trash, but that I am mentally confessing to myself that is plagarism and I enjoy absolutely nothing about the writing.
But I have nothing else to write! And now, with this rejection letter open in another tab, I have nothing to do but simply look at it.
"You should spend your un-creative time editing!"
Yes, if I was interested in editing any projects.
"How about the story you just sent for submission?"
I don't really care about that story, and the only reason it was written was as a test to myself. One, to see if I could write a story in under 1500 words (The final word count was exactly 1500) and two, to see if I could write it in under five days. I submitted it simply as closure to my project. I hadn't anticipated that story to be published (Afterall, I sent it only to one magazine), and I really don't want anything to do with that story (Been doubting using it for workshop).
Editing, also, is weird. I think it's strange to think of editing as un-creative. I dunno how most people edit, but when I do I, generally, make very serious edits to the structure, meaning a complete re-writing of paragraphs and pages (multiple times).
I'm making excuses to myself, actually, not to write now.
....
Blogging is fun.
Maybe I'll write something sporadic, and just try and fill a page real quick.
A mage whom is lonely.
No.
A mage whom is sacrificing...
!
Why not?
No comments:
Post a Comment