Scars that inhibit the Muse

[BuckyDuckman]

I have two scars that intimidate my Muse. The first came from a flippant comment my Mom once made. She was an avid reader. I don't know who or what book she was reading that prompted this comment, but she said, "I don't understand why so many authors go so deeply into flashbacks. If there's something we need to know about a character, start the story when that happens and flash forward."

My Mom wasn't a writer and she wasn't trying to instruct me how to be a writer. She was complaining about something that inhibited her enjoyment of a story. Still, that flippant comment haunts my writing and makes me question every flashback I ever consider.

#2: An English Lit professor in college that I otherwise respected. She once said, "Only the extremely rich or extremely poor are capable of writing the Great American Novel." She supported the comment with examples of authors in history that fit those extremes. She continued with suggesting, "Only the rich have enough leisure time to fully examine the human condition and only the exceptionally poor know enough strife to write about it authentically." According to her, middle-class people are not capable of creating writing of value or substance. They are either too busy earning a living to write or too well off to know real pain.

Fucking bitch.

 

[LadyVer]

Hey, Bucky. Not sure where you're going with this. I think we're all scarred in some way. Fuck muses.

 

[BuckyDuckman]

Hey, Bucky. Not sure where you're going with this. I think we're all scarred in some way. Fuck muses.

Just believing many of us may have ghosts whispering in their ears who inhibit their writing. Best way to exercise a ghost "might" be to throw some light on it. I don't believe either of those people - but their whispers still haunt me. What about you? What's the bad advice that sometimes gets in your way? If you're lucky, you're pure.

 

[LadyVer]

Just believing many of us may have ghosts whispering in their ears who inhibit their writing. Best way to exercise a ghost "might" be to throw some light on it. I don't believe either of those people - but their whispers still haunt me. What about you? What's the bad advice that sometimes gets in your way? If you're lucky, you're pure.

My issues with writing mainly have to do with ADD. Secondary to that is a 7th grade substitute teacher basically telling me I couldn't write worth shit. Realistically, writing never came naturally to me, I had ADD, and I didn't have teachers that knew how to teach writing. I get a lot of great ideas, but it's the follow through I can't grasp. I had the same issue with putting together lesson plans when I was majoring in secondary Ed. Lesson plans for someone with ADD is insane.

 

[sr71plt]

Mine were mostly those "don't begin a sentence with 'and' or 'but,' or end a sentence with a preposition, or use sentence fragments" "rules." Luckily, my English composition professor when I was a college freshman passed out a list of the "rules" and simply said, "Forget all that shit."

 

[DreamCloud]

Mine were mostly those "don't begin a sentence with 'and' or 'but,' or end a sentence with a preposition, or use sentence fragments" "rules." Luckily, my English composition professor when I was a college freshman passed out a list of the "rules" and simply said, "Forget all that shit."

Rules are secondary to the story.

 

[HuckPilgrim]

I have two scars that intimidate my Muse. The first came from a flippant comment my Mom once made. She was an avid reader. I don't know who or what book she was reading that prompted this comment, but she said, "I don't understand why so many authors go so deeply into flashbacks. If there's something we need to know about a character, start the story when that happens and flash forward."

My Mom wasn't a writer and she wasn't trying to instruct me how to be a writer. She was complaining about something that inhibited her enjoyment of a story. Still, that flippant comment haunts my writing and makes me question every flashback I ever consider.

#2: An English Lit professor in college that I otherwise respected. She once said, "Only the extremely rich or extremely poor are capable of writing the Great American Novel." She supported the comment with examples of authors in history that fit those extremes. She continued with suggesting, "Only the rich have enough leisure time to fully examine the human condition and only the exceptionally poor know enough strife to write about it authentically." According to her, middle-class people are not capable of creating writing of value or substance. They are either too busy earning a living to write or too well off to know real pain.

Fucking bitch.

For the flashback thing, just make sure there is a reason for the flashback to exist in the story. Some writers are too self indulgent and add a bunch of meaningless drivel. Sometimes the problem with a flashback is that it comes right at the good part of the story. Maybe that's why your mom was complaining? Sometimes that waiting is a good thing, even if it's painful for a reader. Maybe it ups the tension in the story.

I'm agonizing over a flashback I have in a story right now. It was necessary in an earlier version of the story, but now I've combined that story with a few others for an anthology and one of my beta readers said it should go. Should it? I don't know. I'll have to look at it again and see what it adds to the bigger story it's a part of right now.

For the other thing with rich and poor, I say pffft. If you really believe it you can either give away all your money and commit to writing, or work harder and make yourself stinking rich. I think it would be much easier to compile a list of reasons why that English Lit teacher wasn't worthy of the respect. Was she very rich? Very poor? If not, she was probably just making excuses.

 

[Serafina1210]

My ghosts

Nobody's pure. We've all got ghosts. Here are two of mine.

1. Family mythology. You know, the kind where all the kids are assigned attributes and talents. My sister was "artistic"; my brother was "smart." I was supposed to be musical. I wasted so fucking many of my young years trying to be musical! It never occurred to me that I might be able to tell a story; now I feel like I wasted 3/4 of my life not telling stories.

2. Grammar Nazi mother. You know--copy of Fowler always at her elbow, little shrine to Strunk & White in a corner of the bedroom. She corrected us constantly, with the result that I ended up talking like an academic monograph. I had to unlearn all that shit. The way I did it was to fall in love with talk, and really listen--to taxi drivers, baristas, hotel maids, store clerks. My mom's been dead for almost twenty-five years, and I'm still trying to get her voice out of my head.

BTW, there's a whole pseudo-academic cottage industry built around the idea that a (sort of) middle-class burgher like Will Shakespeare couldn't possibly have written those sublime plays. There are lots of arguments, all crap, but they all originate with class prejudice.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

My issues with writing mainly have to do with ADD. Secondary to that is a 7th grade substitute teacher basically telling me I couldn't write worth shit. Realistically, writing never came naturally to me, I had ADD, and I didn't have teachers that knew how to teach writing. I get a lot of great ideas, but it's the follow through I can't grasp. I had the same issue with putting together lesson plans when I was majoring in secondary Ed. Lesson plans for someone with ADD is insane.

STOP!!! I invented ADD and you aint got it.

I generally write one paragraph at a time. Back in 1985 the state word processor limited composition to one paragraph, and all thought I was a genius because I could fit the fuggin Bible and WAR AND PEACE in a paragraph. Here: THE BIBLE " Youre born ugly and weak and piss poor, you spend your miserable life ugly and weak and piss poor, and you die that way; the bottle is the only real friend you'll ever have. and it eventually kills your ass. Amen"


I'm reminded of what PILOT told me:

A WHILE BACK I POSTED A PERSONAL AD HERE AT LIT. THE AD FEATURED A COCK PIC. THE FIRST RESPONDENT REPLIED. 'WOW!!!" I ASKED WHAT MADE HER SAY 'WOW' AND SHE WROTE BACK YOUR PIC REMINDS ME OF HOW MUCH I NEED A BIG FAT COCK BETWEEN MY LEGS. HE ADDED. I DUMPED HER BECAUSE SHE WAS TOO NASTY AND CRUDE. HE GOT ANOTHER RESPONSE WITH THE SAME 'WOW' COMMENT. SHE THEN ADDED 'IT MAKES ME THINK OF HOW MUCH I WANT A BIG FAT COCK IN MY MOUTH. PILOT MOVED ON TO THE 3RD RESPONDENT. SHE SAID WOW LIKE THE OTHERS AND ADDED, IT REMINDS ME OF HOW MUCH I WANT A BIG FAT COCK IN MY ASS. PILOT MOVED ON ABD DESPAIRED OF MEETING A NICE GIRL AT LIT UNTIL ONE WROTE WOW, LIKE THE OTHERS, BUT ADDED, IT MAKES ME THINK OF PEE PEE'S, SOMETHING I HAVE NO EXPERIENCE WITH AT ALL, I'VE JUST SEEN PICTURES OF THEM. PILOT MARRIED HER.

ON THEIR HONEYMOON PILOT GOT NAKED AND TOLD HER, THIS ISNT A PEE PEE, ITS A BIG FAT COCK. SHE THEN REPLIED, NO DEAR, ITS A LITTLE PEE PEE, A COCK IS A FOOT LONG, AS BIG AS A BEER CAN, AND BLACK.

 

[sr71plt]

Boo. I must really scare you, James. Of course I posted no such thing. You'll do anything to get my attention, won't you, big boy?

But I'll be all atwitter all day at the revelation that you write one paragraph at a time. Who knew?

 

[legerdemer]

Not exactly a scar, but what can inhibit me is knowing that I am not (yet) as good as the writers I really admire, and may never get there. You know, "the perfect being the enemy of the good" kind of thing. Luckily, I have just enough drive to keep trying. Having examples to look up to is great motivation.

 

[Carnal_Flower]

I hope you can at least abandon this one. Its complete crap! Not only is it a cliche I've heard a hundred times before, it is refuted by about a million examples. Just crack open an anthology of American Lit, lady.

#2: An English Lit professor in college that I otherwise respected. She once said, "Only the extremely rich or extremely poor are capable of writing the Great American Novel." She supported the comment with examples of authors in history that fit those extremes. She continued with suggesting, "Only the rich have enough leisure time to fully examine the human condition and only the exceptionally poor know enough strife to write about it authentically." According to her, middle-class people are not capable of creating writing of value or substance. They are either too busy earning a living to write or too well off to know real pain.

Fucking bitch.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Not exactly a scar, but what can inhibit me is knowing that I am not (yet) as good as the writers I really admire, and may never get there. You know, "the perfect being the enemy of the good" kind of thing. Luckily, I have just enough drive to keep trying. Having examples to look up to is great motivation.

The secret to art is simply discovering your aptitudes and disabilities, and using your aptitudes (gifts).

My fine motor coordination is barely better than what the dead and paralyzed possess. I don't do brain surgery or diamond cutting. But I see what most humans can never see, my brain naturally forms 3-demensional models of 2-demensional patterns. You cant learn to do what I do from no training at all. So write what you can write, and leave the other alone.

 

[sr71plt]

Oh, and write one paragraph at a time.

 

[BuckyDuckman]

I hope you can at least abandon this one. Its complete crap! Not only is it a cliche I've heard a hundred times before, it is refuted by about a million examples. Just crack open an anthology of American Lit, lady.

I've dismissed it as spurious. Maybe she was right when she said. Maybe she put a historical spin on it that I'm not recalling. Or perhaps she was full of shit. If her intention was to discourage the bright young faces in her classroom to abandon all hope, it didn't stick with me. I'm always hopeful.

 

[NotWise]

Not exactly a scar, but what can inhibit me is knowing that I am not (yet) as good as the writers I really admire, and may never get there. You know, "the perfect being the enemy of the good" kind of thing. Luckily, I have just enough drive to keep trying. Having examples to look up to is great motivation.

I'm not slowed down because I don't write like Fitzgerald, or Heinlein,or Asimov. I am slowed down a lot by the worry that what I write is not as good as I could write. I'm always trying to improve. To make things worse, the bar on what I think I can write gets higher all the time.

 

[legerdemer]

I'm not slowed down because I don't write like Fitzgerald, or Heinlein,or Asimov. I am slowed down a lot by the worry that what I write is not as good as I could write. I'm always trying to improve. To make things worse, the bar on what I think I can write gets higher all the time.

Yes, I'm with you on these as well.

 

[Carnal_Flower]

On the subject of this thread, makes me think of Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way. It's a bit hokey at times but a great book about creativity and esp dealing with negative voices in your head.

I've dismissed it as spurious. Maybe she was right when she said. Maybe she put a historical spin on it that I'm not recalling. Or perhaps she was full of shit. If her intention was to discourage the bright young faces in her classroom to abandon all hope, it didn't stick with me. I'm always hopeful.

 

[NotWise]

Yes, I'm with you on these as well.

Those inhibitions might be a side effect of writing for a hobby rather than for a living. Were we doing it for a living we might write first and worry about it later.

 

[Hypoxia]

ObTopic: Guilt. I should be doing something more important. Soon as I get that out of the way, I can write again. Right.

 

[BuckyDuckman]

I sometimes feel guilty about "wasting time" writing. Once a story has really taken hold with me, it's difficult to ignore the siren's call of the keyboard. I invent excuses for why it's okay for me to put off other work so I can spend more time writing while the grass grows higher, weeds threaten to overtake the garden, dishes begin piling up in the sink. . .

 

[MatthewVett]

#2: An English Lit professor in college that I otherwise respected. She once said, "Only the extremely rich or extremely poor are capable of writing the Great American Novel." She supported the comment with examples of authors in history that fit those extremes. She continued with suggesting, "Only the rich have enough leisure time to fully examine the human condition and only the exceptionally poor know enough strife to write about it authentically." According to her, middle-class people are not capable of creating writing of value or substance. They are either too busy earning a living to write or too well off to know real pain.

Fucking bitch.

I mean, not an American, but wouldn't Shakespeare have been middle class?

 

[Handley_Page]

I mean, not an American, but wouldn't Shakespeare have been middle class?

He was. And a person from the Midlands, to boot.
Not, you'll note, some toff from the capital, but an ordinary bloke from the sticks.

 

[Hypoxia]

He was. And a person from the Midlands, to boot.
Not, you'll note, some toff from the capital, but an ordinary bloke from the sticks.

Small-town boy comes to big city, survives pressure-cooker intensity in the theatre world, shows talent, does well. And his writing improves. Isn't that the Buddy Holly story without the aircrash?

 

[AMoveableBeast]

My ghosts have ghosts.