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LOVE ME!!!
Mar. 26th, 2016 10:43 pmI'm a little bit devastated right now. And stressed. And generally not feeling so good.
So... I've posted Ring Truly. At last.
The history of this is...( longwinded. )
And the response has been... well, I'm hearing a lot of crickets chirping. I'm getting kudos, if not huge quantities of it, but... no comments. And I *know* I'm overthinking this. Based on the usual average comment ratio for the number of hits, I should have approximately two or three comments by now. Two or three. Possibly more like one, based on the kudos rate. Seriously, I am way overthinking this.
In floods the anxiety. Are people hating it? Are they just completley unmoved by it? Is it terrible? Is it inexplicable? Is it just plain confusing? What? Why does no one like my twist? Does no one understand my concept, and how cool it is? Do they understand it, and just not think it's as cool as I do? Or have I, again, wrecked another story which could have been amazing, but this time because of the way I've forced the characters to comply, it simply doesn't--excuse the pun--ring truly?
I know I need to write for myself. I know I need to write for what I want to happen to the characters, for the cool concepts that are amazing to me. Screw what other people think; writing is about me. But... also, it's not. Writing is about translating parts of me into something other people can see. Something other people can understand, something they can read and make their very own connection with the story that's ultimately a connection with me. Writing is, for me, the most intimate and satisfying interpersonal contact I can get, because it's the direct public exposure of my heart and soul.
I don't need everyone to be telling me how wonderful I am all the time. That's not what this is about. That's not... entirely what this is about. Of course I love being told I'm wonderful, who doesn't? But it's hard enough letting myself do things less than perfectly, let alone worrying that I haven't even done them successfully. Worrying that I haven't managed to make this work at all is making me second-guess everything I know about myself and the fact that I can write at all.
Writing something amazing wasn't what this was about--this year of writing is about getting things out the door and making my peace with the fact that getting things done is actually better than getting them not-quite-perfect-yet. This feeling? Growing into this feeling is what it's all about. If I'm going to write original, I won't be in the ego-stroking environment of ready-made fans with a convenient kudos button and comment textbox. The real world is cruel, and mostly silent. And there'll be rejection letters and critical reviews on goodreads that will break my heart. If I can't even cope with 36 hours of no one saying anything, then I'm not going to do so well at publishing original novels.
This is fine. It's okay to speak, even when what you say isn't going to amaze the whole room.
But it's still awful to feel that after all the effort, all the blood and tears I've put into this story, that my heart and soul are sitting out there, exposed, with people looking at them and thinking... meh.
So... I've posted Ring Truly. At last.
The history of this is...( longwinded. )
And the response has been... well, I'm hearing a lot of crickets chirping. I'm getting kudos, if not huge quantities of it, but... no comments. And I *know* I'm overthinking this. Based on the usual average comment ratio for the number of hits, I should have approximately two or three comments by now. Two or three. Possibly more like one, based on the kudos rate. Seriously, I am way overthinking this.
In floods the anxiety. Are people hating it? Are they just completley unmoved by it? Is it terrible? Is it inexplicable? Is it just plain confusing? What? Why does no one like my twist? Does no one understand my concept, and how cool it is? Do they understand it, and just not think it's as cool as I do? Or have I, again, wrecked another story which could have been amazing, but this time because of the way I've forced the characters to comply, it simply doesn't--excuse the pun--ring truly?
I know I need to write for myself. I know I need to write for what I want to happen to the characters, for the cool concepts that are amazing to me. Screw what other people think; writing is about me. But... also, it's not. Writing is about translating parts of me into something other people can see. Something other people can understand, something they can read and make their very own connection with the story that's ultimately a connection with me. Writing is, for me, the most intimate and satisfying interpersonal contact I can get, because it's the direct public exposure of my heart and soul.
I don't need everyone to be telling me how wonderful I am all the time. That's not what this is about. That's not... entirely what this is about. Of course I love being told I'm wonderful, who doesn't? But it's hard enough letting myself do things less than perfectly, let alone worrying that I haven't even done them successfully. Worrying that I haven't managed to make this work at all is making me second-guess everything I know about myself and the fact that I can write at all.
Writing something amazing wasn't what this was about--this year of writing is about getting things out the door and making my peace with the fact that getting things done is actually better than getting them not-quite-perfect-yet. This feeling? Growing into this feeling is what it's all about. If I'm going to write original, I won't be in the ego-stroking environment of ready-made fans with a convenient kudos button and comment textbox. The real world is cruel, and mostly silent. And there'll be rejection letters and critical reviews on goodreads that will break my heart. If I can't even cope with 36 hours of no one saying anything, then I'm not going to do so well at publishing original novels.
This is fine. It's okay to speak, even when what you say isn't going to amaze the whole room.
But it's still awful to feel that after all the effort, all the blood and tears I've put into this story, that my heart and soul are sitting out there, exposed, with people looking at them and thinking... meh.
