Ow
Someone asked me if I'd gotten any writing done at the con. Writing? Con? I may write about the con, or talk about writing at the con, but otherwise? The two don't much seem to combine. (Do people write at cons? Do people
sleep at cons? Wherever do they find the time?) What I did do, however, was ponder the latest story-in-progress, "The Ghosts of Water," which I haven't been able to add to in far too long. I was pondering and came to a conclusion:
It needs emotional depth. Damn it.
I then spent a good bit of mental time muttering to myself about foolish stories that aren't content to be short, slightly gimmicky style pieces. Mutter, mutter. Which sounds silly, but sometimes you just want a story to be a story, or a short bit of writing, or a slightly gimmicky style piece. Emotional depth is hard. Emotional depth hurts. Course, it can make for a better story, too ...
Ah, well.
I suppose the really frustrating thing, though, is knowing that even with its supposed emotional depth, this one is still going to be enough of a gimmicky style piece that finding anyone who will want to read the thing for me is going to be damn near impossible. Of all writing-related things, this has been the one that's gotten me down of late, and not just about this story but others, too--the whole concept of my writing, really. I know many writers, the vast majority of whom are talented, driven, intellegent and interesting people. (Lucky me.) I will critique for some of them, and read and enjoy their stories. These are all good things. Yet there is a bad side, too: no matter how much I love someone else's work, I can't
make them love mine.
On one hand, I know that I need to write what I need to write and let that be it. And yet it hurts to have people that I like and care about, people who I respect as writers, people who are readers, too, not like what I write. Not want to read what I write. I mean ... ow. I'm not writing just for myself; I want my work to be read and understood and enjoyed. And though I know that there are those people out there who
will read and understand and enjoy what I write, I know shockingly few of them. (And most of them live far away, see me rarely, and are busy beyond words.) That's just ... ow.
And perhaps even worse is that there's nothing I can do about this situation. There's nothing that I could say, nothing that I can change (beyond who I am and what I write) that will make this situation any different. I suppose I can only focus on the witing, and not let the "ow" get the better of me.
