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I've been having thoughts about my existential relationship with writing TG fiction. Yes, I feel blocked of late, unable to progress on the projects I have on deck. Illness, depression, what have you intermittently plague me. It's even disturbed my normal sleep pattern. Now, these are signs of problems that extend further than my writing. I'm aware of that. But, still I ponder the need to write. Not that I would stop writing for my own sake. I guess I would continue to drabble about to amuse myself as I've done off and on for most of my adult life. The question is: do I want or need to put my writing out there, for readers. For anyone beyond myself?
One of my best friends from college is Louise Adler. BigCloset denizens who hail from Australia may know who she is. Former cultural affairs presenter on ABC Radio, ex-CEO of Melbourne University Publishing, currently Publisher-at-Large at Hachette. Herself not a writer, Louise has had a lifetime of involvement with writers and the writing enterprise in all its facets. She is truly one of the most brilliant people I have ever known and one of the few people I trusted with the knowledge of my particular situation of being transgender with the added perk of being on the autism spectrum. A recent interview in the Sydney Morning Herald intersected with my concerns. When asked what her commandments for authors were, she answered:
"Think about your audience. Work out who you’re writing for. If you’re writing for yourself, enjoy it, then put it in the drawer. And just because Aunty Beryl or Uncle Kevin thinks it’s great, don’t hang on to their viewpoint. They may not be the best arbiters."
Put it in the drawer. I have no pretensions of thinking I'm getting published anytime soon. Self-publishing seems to be literally an exercise in vanity and probably cost me more than I could possibly receive in revenue. Louise, later on in the interview, reflects on her bar for publishing: "It sounds banal, but you have to have something to say. Something to contribute."I'm not sure I've attained that prerequisite.
I'm being melodramatic, I know. But the doubts hammer away at my resolve. I stare at the keyboard and I say to myself: "This is only of interest to me. Put it in the drawer."
How have you dealt with these doubts? How were you able to overcome? Or, perhaps you didn't. I need a little guidance from you wonderful folk right now. Thank you for listening. Hugs to you all.
Comments
Perhaps not the best one to give you feedback
Why you write is something only you can decide. I have no reason to dig into you motivations.
I'll just tell you why I write and post at BCTS.
When I get an idea I find interesting I sometimes write a story and post it here, the crafting is usually enjoyable. Then I eagerly await the reactions. I admit I find the reactions fascinating. Both postive and negative reactions.
I also have to confess to getting a kick out of giving some enjoyment to others at no actual cost to myself.
I don't think too much about "something to contribute". I don't charge for my stories. However, given the feedback I get I apparently have something to contribute. Good!
I have no ambition to become a professional writer so I don't use BCTS to hone my writing skills as some posters do with mutual benefit.
I refuse to put myself into a position where I feel any obligation to post. That's why I never attempted any long series with a regular posting schedule. If I don't feel like posting I don't post.
Thanks, Bru
For your response. You seem to have a very healthy attitude toward your writing. And, as I have discovered in my relatively brief time with the site, you have a uniquely ironic and entertaining style which I enjoy very much. You can tell I'm not as secure in my writing and not as comfortable in my own skin. It's a little late in life but I'm working toward an equilibrium that can give me the conviction to write, for myself and anyone who might find it interesting enough to read. I'll try to keep on keeping on.
Hugs,
Sammy
Louise Adler advice is good
Louise Adler advice is good if you are intending to publish with the idea of making money.
even most published writers make very little money.
I was told the average return on a first novel published in the UK in the 1980s was less than 10,000 pounds.
A few authors like Jeffery archer sell in the millions.
Even in the first novel sold very little. after Cane and Able, he started to sell in the millions.
Writing stories on a web form is different.
you get feedback and new ideas as the story progresses.
Many people I know who write on forums use it as a form of therapy.
https://mewswithaview.wordpress.com/
A form of therapy
Yes, that's true for me as well, I'm slightly embarrassed to say. And therein lies the trepidation. I would prefer to write to entertain the reader. The therapeutic benefit for me, the author, should be secondary, even tertiary. I struggle with that. There are stories I have started and, in some cases completed, that I feel are "about me." I suppose those are the ones to put in the drawer.
Thanks for your response.
Hugs,
Sammy
It's something personal
I think that for each of us writing is something personal. Ask fifty contributors here on BCTS why they write an post and you'll get fifty unique points of view on why they write and post. My early efforts were purely for me. It was a kind of therapy. Kind like writing a diary where you could say anything and be honest without fear of condemnation. Most all of it consisted of things I'd have liked to have happened to me. After completing a half a dozen stories I felt the need to share what I'd written thinking that if just one person could enjoy or benefit from my musings then great. I put them up on my now defunct web site. To my surprise comments were positive. I was even recruited by some one from Reluctant Press to publish with them. They were willing to pay me $200.00 dollars for the copyright to one of my stories. I became a published author. I was feeling pretty good about myself. That was before I realized they don't reject anything you send them. I only published two stories with them before I became disillusioned and found online sites (Fictionmania and StorySite and much later BCTS) to publish my stories.
I settled in here and now publish here exclusively. I have 22 fiction and three articles plus a half a dozen "published by permission of the author" entries. I'm quite surprised at the positive reaction from the readers here. I do have 10 stories published on Smashwords and derive a bit of pocket change from there. (If I was going to make living from it I'd need a thousand such stories to do so.)
But with all that, I write for me. I enjoy the writing and I enjoy sharing those that I manage to complete. Quite frankly I'm in awe of the response I get. I too refuse to publish anything that is not complete and don't publish them in "chapters" looking critiques for ideas of where to take the story. I put them out complete and don't look at the comments for a while. Usually not for about a month. Partly because I wrote it for me and partly because I don't want to bruise my ego if there are negative responses.
I have currently 10 have unfinished pieces of TG fiction and one incomplete article sitting on my hard drive only two of which I've done anything with in the past 6 months. I get surges of creativity that lets me pump out a couple of thousand words now and then before it runs out. Mostly, for what ever reason (I try not to analyze it), I'm pretty much sitting on a writer's block.
All that said, I'm not giving up writing. I'm just not stressing about whether to write or not.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Thank you for sharing your experience
I think my stressing out about this is a byproduct of coming out of a six month period where the words came like a deluge, surprising me and, of course, delighting me. I had always been a slow learner (and writer) as Thomas Pynchon famously described himself. A cluster of story ideas appeared out of the blue and I found the energy, time, and dedication to pound my laptop keyboard into submission. Then, of late, that's evaporated. The story ideas are still there but I'm in a freeze. Perhaps this will pass in short order but the urge to over-think it kind of takes over. As my mom used to say: "It's a phase. It'll pass."
Hugs,
Sammy
Compelled To Write
Since I was preadolescent there was a drive to express my emotions and to build a world free from all the pain and suffering in my own. It would have been nice to make money doing it, but that has not happened. Yonks ago a movie editor said that I should try screenwriting, but owing to the pressures of life that got pushed out. In my dotage, I have found that there are all sorts of issues with writing both for the screen and books. And, if they buy your book for a movie, they slash it to pieces. I suppose that it is best that I dawdle along on BCTS.
Thanks for your thoughts, Gwen
I originally wanted to be a comic book artist and was an art major all the way through high school. Even had a painting of mine shown at The Lever Gallery in NYC when I was 13. But my gender confusion caused me to concentrate on heavier academic subjects and it wasn't until I was decades into my professional career that I felt the need to express my creativity...this time in writing. So, the reality is I am writing not for profit but for my own (and hopefully some readers') enjoyment. Meanwhile, I feel like Hamlet sometimes...to write or not to write. What a question!
I enjoy your probing blog entries, Gwen. You bring up some thought-provoking issues.
Hugs,
Sammy
What works in the written
The need to write is like any of the arts, dancers need to dance. painters and sculptors feel compelled to do their thing.
Storytellers need to tell a story.
What works in the written form is not the same when it becomes a movie or tv series.
n movie or tv get done with going through a focus group
TV and films are directors' mediums and require changes to adapt a story to that style of storytelling.
The writer is on the bottom of the tottomen pole
behind the director, producer, actors special effects people etc.
in the tv Outlander, you can see a lot of changes from the original books.
https://mewswithaview.wordpress.com/
I'm rather...
I'm rather the reader. I write only when I can't find what I want to read.
It's not exact wording. I write when I start missing something. Then my writing is filling that void. After each story the composite world image is more complete. Every new story adds something to that image. Write, make our world!
Doubts?
It depends on what you call "doubts." I don't doubt whether it's worthwhile -- to both me and to the reader. I have evolved a few aims and/or beliefs over the years about writing. A long time back I had the aim to write in such a way that the reader would HAVE to continue reading, even if they didn't want to. Then, since Robert Graves' The Reader Over Your Shoulder, I try to write (and rewrite) to remove obstacles to reading -- meaning that anyplace that my eye stops or hesitates, it's something that needs fixing.
That's mechanics, though.
I get BRIEFLY disheartened when I read someone whose work is superior to mine. I had that feeling when I re-read The Great Gatsby a month ago. I get that feeling when I go through a few pages of Look Homeward, Angel. I know I'm outclassed and I don't know how to get into that class. Except, I suppose, by writing.
I have a ton of story ideas in various stages of development. Some are nothing more than ideas. Others have extensive, contradictory notes and outlines. A few have several chapters written. I look through them, all of them, at least once a week, and ask myself, Why? -- but it's not an existential cry. It's a search for a spark or a flash or a laugh that maybe I didn't see last week, but maybe I'll see it now. There has to be something in there calling to me.
So, THAT -- finding a nugget to grow into a story -- the finding is fun. The working out of the idea, the bones and the flesh and the clothes -- that's fun, too.
I mean, I often ask myself, "Why should anyone care about this story I'm writing?" I ask that just as often as I wonder why *I* should care about the story I'm writing. But it's not a question of should I write or should I not write. The questions are there because I'm GOING to write it, and those questions are a focus: I have to make it good for myself in some way, and I have to take care of the reader, too.
Most days, the only effort is starting.
One suggestion I dare to make is that -- if you have a story that you want to write but are worried about its reception, you should make a nice pseudonym and post it there. I was tormented for ten years by the situation in Sexual Innovations in the Underworld, and when I finally posted it, no one started screaming. I didn't get any lightning bolts in my email. I think most people who read it, read it furtively and then slunk away, like someone who's afraid they parked too close to the adult book store.
That tickles me.
So anyway, that's me in my little world.
Sammy, your blog made me realize that I haven't read any of your pieces, so I've gotten to work on that. I began "Painted from Memory" just before I started writing this comment, so I should have something to say there soon.
Hugs and thanks for being a part of this BCTS place!
- io