Yet, it's not just the people's opinions that I value which can hurt, sometimes, for no reason that makes sense to me, it is the random stranger, the friend of a friend - that hurts. All the more so when others appear to agree with them. I think that may have been what prompted Whedon's rant.
For two years I could not write fiction - essays, posts on the net, sure, but not fiction - not what lay close to my heart - and the internet was partly to blame for it - the critical voices of people I did not really know - which for reasons that made no sense to me began to echo in my own head whenever I stared at that blank page, second-guessing every decision I made. Every sentence. Every point. Debating it. It took me a while to learn how to shut it off. And to use what I had learned about my own writing while on learn constructively.
To, like you state, see the warts, yet not be hyper-aware of them to the degree you fear going outside and letting others see them. Not being so self-conscious. It's like doing anything, I think, if you focus too much on what you are doing wrong or making it "perfect", you can't do it at all - you become frozen. It's why there's nanwrimore or whatever it is called - to help people become unfrozen, to turn off that voice that requires them to be perfect. The irony is that sometimes the beauty in art lies in the imperfections the flaws. This may sound odd but what I liked most about BTVS and ATS at times were the gaps, the little mistakes or surprises - the unplanned imperfections - it made the shows resonate more for me. I often tend to forget the art that is neat, tidy, and perfectly rendered. Did you know that the Papago Indians (Native Americans) deliberately insert a flaw in their bead work? (My Grandmother learned to bead from a Papago Indian Woman - pretty sure it was Papago, memory is odd at times). The reason is that the flaw lets the evil spirits out.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2007-01-10 04:41 am (UTC)Yet, it's not just the people's opinions that I value which can hurt, sometimes, for no reason that makes sense to me, it is the random stranger, the friend of a friend - that hurts. All the more so when others appear to agree with them. I think that may have been what prompted Whedon's rant.
For two years I could not write fiction - essays, posts on the net, sure, but not fiction - not what lay close to my heart - and the internet was partly to blame for it - the critical voices of people I did not really know - which for reasons that made no sense to me began to echo in my own head whenever I stared at that blank page, second-guessing every decision I made. Every sentence. Every point.
Debating it. It took me a while to learn how to shut it off. And to use what I had learned about my own writing while on learn constructively.
To, like you state, see the warts, yet not be hyper-aware of them to the degree you fear going outside and letting others see them. Not being so self-conscious. It's like doing anything, I think, if you focus too much on what you are doing wrong or making it "perfect", you can't do it at all - you become frozen. It's why there's nanwrimore or whatever it is called - to help people become unfrozen, to turn off that voice that requires them to be perfect. The irony is that sometimes the beauty in art lies in the imperfections the flaws.
This may sound odd but what I liked most about BTVS and ATS at times were the gaps, the little mistakes or surprises - the unplanned imperfections - it made the shows resonate more for me. I often tend to forget the art that is neat, tidy, and perfectly rendered. Did you know that the Papago Indians (Native Americans) deliberately insert a flaw in their bead work? (My Grandmother learned to bead from a Papago Indian Woman - pretty sure it was Papago, memory is odd at times). The reason is that the flaw lets the evil spirits out.