(no subject)

[emansil-12.livejournal.com]

I was going to make it all one big post and then realized that although similar they really are very different ideas.

Writing fanfic on LJ, is an interesting sort of litmus test for the above question. Yes, I know comments don't count for everything, but they do make a huge difference in how you might feel about your chances of getting that golden ticket to Hollywood, or the publishing contract. When you consistently, in each and every fest you've ever written in, no matter 10, 20, 30 or more participants, receive the lowest number of comments - and i do mean the lowest by sometimes as many as 1/2 of the next lowest, it sort of does something to you. You try to shrug it off, you try to not do the comparison thing, but you do. Then you sort cry, sometimes internally, sometimes for real. Then you swear you'll never write again.

I've done that numerous times, which a lot of you know. The last time was over this past Christmas, after a fic I wrote pretty much died in the water. I admit I was in a very emotional place at the time, and that may have had a major affect. Bottom line, I not only swore I would never write again, I actually spent the next three days, completely destroying and deleting everything I could find, and get my hands on that I had ever written. Every computer’s hard drive, every flash drive, every post, every archive I’d ever posted it, all deleted, wiped clean. Then I took my notebooks, of rough drafts, finished works, betaed and unbetaed. Every started but unfinished fic, every note, every bit of research ripped in to shred and deposited in the trash. Every magazine I'd ever bought and saved on writing was also thrown in the trash and at least 1/2 of the books were traded at the used book store. (I didn't do them all, as too much money had been spent.) It was drastic i know, but I also know I needed it. I felt cleansed and purged. It was glorious.

But the urge returned and slowly I'm returning. A prompt in Glompfest caught my eye, and I wrote for it. A dear dear wonderful friend had a prompt in rare-pair I thought I could do, so I wrote for it. And a fan_fair prompt intrigued me so, well you guessed it - I wrote it. I'm trying really hard to write for the giftee and tryng to write what makes me happy and in the style that I hear in my head. A style that drives most of my betas a bit batty, because it's seldom grammatically correct. I'm trying to let go of expectations or even wants, because that way lies madness.

Now, I've learned to never say never, but my new goal is to write it, put it out there for a short period of time, one week, two weeks, maybe three but that's doubtful, and then delete it. Like the Buddhist Sand Painting the goal is to create it and then let it go. Now, of course anything written for a fest is the property of the fest and does not apply here. I do not expect to ever cross post anything I write, there will no archiving of any fics. Anything written for fests will be linked on this journal one time, it will remain in the fest community and will not be posted on this journal. Anything I write as a bd, or Christmas, or as thank you will be gifted to them and they can do with it what they want.

I realize this all seems rather drastic and severe, but honestly I'm just trying to keep the feeling of lightness when I destroyed it all this past Christmas. Sometimes I miss having it all, but mostly I don't. Creating and writing makes me happy, worrying about the results makes me insane.