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[shadowkat]

I don't know why this is but some inexplicable reason I can't write today. Had to do a free hand writing sample for an interview and my words just got stuck. They would not come.
Did it again tonight with an lj entry. Did not any sense when I read it again.

Does this happen to you? The words just get stuck somehow. They won't come out.
Perhaps I'm tired?

Oh...has anyone heard of Allyson Beatrice? Or Buffistas? (The board group she moderated and ran?)

She apparently wrote a book entitled, I kid you not, Will the Vampire People Please Leave the Lobby: Adventures in Cult Fandom

And yes, if you guessed it was about Buffy fans, you guessed right.

Sigh. She beat me to it. Although from reading the excerpts in Entertainment Weekly, she's had far more bizarre experiences and done far crazier things than I have. So, I doubt I'd have gotten published. Plus Tim Minear encouraged her to write it. Can't beat that.

I'm not a fan. I just flirted at being a fan. A fan is someone who stalks follows (and I mean literally not just watching them on tv or reading stuff on the net) actors, writers, creators of the series about. And writes them. Emails them. That is a fan.
Me? I just happened to be a little obsessed by the show.

Comments

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Tom (Andrew on Buffy) Lenk did a wonderful one man (more or less, since he had 'guests' on stage w/him) play about his experiences as the semi famous/non-headliner. Hee. Now, someone I'd like to see do a one-man play on that topic is James Marsters - who had the odd experience of a being on both sides of the rabid fan line. He was a rabid fan of Spock on Star Trek and attended on the cons complete with spock ears. Now he is the center of a rabid fandom. It's almost as if he is living the dream of every rabid fan - to become the icon of one. Ironic and fascinating.


Anyway Neil Gaiman was talking about 'writers' block' today, and he would be proud of you for saying you were stuck. Because he doesn't believe in the whole concept of being blocked

I'm not sure I agree with his definition of writer's block. It's not the inability to write anything. It's the inability to feel that your words are conveying what is inside. The post I wrote before this one felt, incoherent. Babbling. When I have writer's block...I feel as if the words are gibberish, that they have no flow, that I can't find the right ones, the ones I want to best convey what I'm thinking and feeling. It's a bit like drawing in a way...you are looking at the piece of paper in front of you and you just can't put anything on it that you like. It's not that you can't draw or put a line on the paper - of course you can. But it looks to your eyes at least like nothing. It has no substance. No weight. But you can go off and doodle to your hearts content. Does that make sense?

Interestingly at the DC comics talent search (just searching for artists, not writers) they said that artists should be drawing all the time, to keep the hand eye thing going, to improve..

I'd agree. I used to draw much better than I currently do. The reason? I haven't been working at it. It's like anything really - having talent or a skill isn't enough. You could be born with the most beautiful singing voice on the planet - but if you don't train it, work on it, it won't sound beautiful. It won't sound bad either. But it won't be fantastic. Same with writing and drawing - if you don't do it constantly - the muscels freeze up, and you get rusty.

People online used to tell me that I had a gift. My ability to write was clearly a *god-given* gift. I found myself laughing at them or rolling my eyes. No, I'd write back. It's REALLY not. To say such a thing is not only silly, it undermines all the hard work the person has done - giving the credit to some outside entity.

I've written every day since I was eight years of age. Before that, I told stories to myself, my brother, and friends aloud. I read constantly. Have taken writing classes, attended writing workshops, and had my work critiqued. I've seen so much red marks on my work, it looked like the paper was bleeding. And I've been trained how to critique my own work and others. That's just plain hard work, not a gift. I was not born with this ability. I honed it, worked at it, sweated over it. Given up things in favor of it - such as going out with friends. And I'm still not where I need to be regarding it. I may never be. But I'm driven to write in a way that I was never quite driven to draw or do anything else. It's a passion. I crave it. When I can't do it, I get irritable and cranky. And that *passion* - I think was both the gift and the curse I was given - the passion to write, the drive to do it, no matter what. It's not the skill that we are born with, it is the passion to do it that we are. I think. It's the passion...which is both gift and curse, like most god-given gifts are.

Sorry sort of off-topic.

Thanks for sharing your comic-con experiences. Of the conventions I've read about - that's the one I would not have minded attending. It looked wicked cool.

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

Comic con is really amazing, the biggest problem is having some place affordable to stay (I am paying a fortune for a nice quiet room alone).
I had been to a Wizard World comic book convention in Chicago and it was chaotic w/horrible long lines 2 hours or more long, and they maxed out at 20,000 people attending. THIS convention is 120,000 people (!) and it is much more organized and the crowds are not as over-whelming (I have a bit of a crowd phobia).

Last night when I responded here I was all in the flush of having enjoyed listening to Gaiman, who has a theory that 'writers' block' is a grandeous way of not meeting one's deadlines and obligations, he doesn't believe in it. But then he is obviously one who speaks easily, and communicates with an incredible flow of words. He grew up reading everything he could get his hands on (literally going through the school library starting w/A) and who always carried a book (sitting under the table reading during family weddings).

Interesting comment by the DC artist search guys: they have more trouble finding artists who can draw people sitting naturally in chairs, or who can draw realistic children.... they are NOT looking for artist who can draw spandex covered muscles and over-blown female forms, those are a dime a dozen! They recommended that artists draw during the convention, draw the real people surrounding them.