Today, somewhat cowed.
Apr. 26th, 2004 03:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
butterflydreamingSince I know that activity related to going online is part of the bigger problem, I had thought to cool it for a day or two, but then, I wanted to share this.
This post is about writing & art... I'll keep it from being personal this time.
I told Cary today about how I was having a crisis with my writing... specifically that I hated everything... and after clarifying that I did in fact mean hate ("hate is a strong word," he said), he alluded to the Khalil Gibran, in which there is the lesson that though children pass through their mothers, once born, they no longer belong to them. If your writing is like your children, (to further that idea, he said), then once your works pass through you, like children, they no longer belong to you.
Oh.
So there they are, out in the world, with lives of their own; I cannot take them back, and I should not try.
Somewhat mollified, somewhat ashamed, I thought about what he was saying... and I agreed.
Once I've offered a story (or poem, etc.) for public consumption, I have to let it be out there.
And then later, because the universe thought that I needed another slap up-side my head, I was talking to my brother after lunch, and he said, "Everything has an audience. As an artist, I can't be thinking about who is going to like what I make, or what other people are going to think about it."
I was stunned. "You are absolutely right," I said.
Hence...
I will do my best from now on to stop making myself crazy about who is reading my stuff, or who isn't, what others think, or what they don't. I will finish what I have started, and I will accept it if I disappoint the expectations of my readers, as long as, for myself, I retain integrity.
I would never actually have destroyed my discs or wrecked my computer just because I was in the Mean Reds, really. They are my children; I could never destroy them just because they were as I made them. My apologies if I worried anyone, and my apologies for making a spectacle of myself. I do have enough sanity left, when I'm having the crazies, to tie myself down if I must.
And that's as personal as I'm going to get right now.
(This LJ has been updated without looking at my "Most Recent Entries" page.)
This post is about writing & art... I'll keep it from being personal this time.
I told Cary today about how I was having a crisis with my writing... specifically that I hated everything... and after clarifying that I did in fact mean hate ("hate is a strong word," he said), he alluded to the Khalil Gibran, in which there is the lesson that though children pass through their mothers, once born, they no longer belong to them. If your writing is like your children, (to further that idea, he said), then once your works pass through you, like children, they no longer belong to you.
Oh.
So there they are, out in the world, with lives of their own; I cannot take them back, and I should not try.
Somewhat mollified, somewhat ashamed, I thought about what he was saying... and I agreed.
Once I've offered a story (or poem, etc.) for public consumption, I have to let it be out there.
And then later, because the universe thought that I needed another slap up-side my head, I was talking to my brother after lunch, and he said, "Everything has an audience. As an artist, I can't be thinking about who is going to like what I make, or what other people are going to think about it."
I was stunned. "You are absolutely right," I said.
Hence...
I will do my best from now on to stop making myself crazy about who is reading my stuff, or who isn't, what others think, or what they don't. I will finish what I have started, and I will accept it if I disappoint the expectations of my readers, as long as, for myself, I retain integrity.
I would never actually have destroyed my discs or wrecked my computer just because I was in the Mean Reds, really. They are my children; I could never destroy them just because they were as I made them. My apologies if I worried anyone, and my apologies for making a spectacle of myself. I do have enough sanity left, when I'm having the crazies, to tie myself down if I must.
And that's as personal as I'm going to get right now.
(This LJ has been updated without looking at my "Most Recent Entries" page.)