demiurgent | Typing

Typing is like running, in a way. Running for a goal. "I need to get four pages written by tomorrow or I'm going to flunk Western Civ." Running for health. Running to get away. Running running running typing typing typing....

I'm typing. I type every day of my life. I type to communicate. I type to play. I type to inform. I type to run.

I type because I'm scared of what happens when I stop typing. I type because I don't know what there will be of me.

I've had good friends describe me as "anal" when it comes to Gossamer Commons. When it comes to Websnark. I say random things. Stuff about consistency, or best practices, or audience expectation, or building readerships. The things you say. The things you always say.

I don't know how to tell them how scared I am. How I know if the blog goes empty too long, or the webcomic doesn't update... how ephemeral it all feels to me. It's the internet. If I disappeared tomorrow, then next week the sands would cover over the marks I have made, and no one would ever know I was there.

And so I type. I type every day. I type and write and try my damnedest to make the marks deep. But they're never deep enough.

And people tell me "oh, you ought to write a novel." Like I haven't. Like I don't write short stories. Like I don't take a shot at the forms that might -- might endure.

The simple truth is, they're not good enough. I'm not good enough. I can write five thousand words of blog entry that make people weep, but my short stories suck ass.

And so I write more blog entries. I write more webcomics. I write more columns. Because if I stop, there won't be anything left. I'll be hollow. I'll be nothing.

And then there are nights like tonight, with the shrieking in my ears that never ends and the work that goes on and on and on... and I realize I want to lie down next to my words. I want to lie down and let the sands cover us both, until there's nothing left.

It sounds attractive to me.

And that scares me more.

And so I'm writing all the more. Because I don't dare stop. I'm scared of who I'll be if I do.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

i won't even pretend to understand how agonizing it must be with the incessant ringing in your ears, but you put into words exactly how i've felt for the past month and especially the past few days.

hope you feel better soon.

I think I know how you feel.

When you're a writer (or in my case, a procrastinating, undisciplined, unpublished young punk with delusions of grandeur), writing feels great. Better than great. When you've got it, when you're on, it's like warm sunshine on the skin, like sex, like Dave the Space Baby mainlining suspect and illicit substances straight into your spine and you don't want to stop and ...

... and the phone rings. Or your buddy comes over. Or your show is starting. Or it's just the next day and you can't find the time.

And you lose it. And you let it slide for a day. And a day becomes a week becomes several weeks ...

And every day you look over at your computer screen and you feel that guilty tingle in you gut and in the back of your head and you know you should but there's other things to do and ...

And that's why I love Websnark. Not because you're filling a niche or snarking stuff I like. Because I love reading a writer who loves their art. No matter what you're writing about, I can "feel" the joy you have for writing.

Which is my belated way of saying "thank you". You've made an impression on me, and on others. Someday Websnark may disappear into the morass of the Internet, but the impression will remain.

...For what it's worth, I understand in a lot of ways. :x It's why I post so much fanfic to my blog. I KNOW if I don't post a fic in two days, I'm suddenly getting nothing in my inbox except letters from my mom.

So... yeah. It's lonely and frightening and I don't want to vanish, and I do understand that desperate keep-typing feeling. :x

aye, the internet as a whole may be a venue chock full of things which disappear, to be covered by sand until most (if not all) memories are gone.

But you, and lately Wednesday, have changed something in the way I think about creativity. Before, see, I never thought about why it feels so good to create, even when it's a big honkin' pain in the ass. A year of websnark has helped me realize that it's not my cute little hobby. It's real art, if I love it and feed it and help it grow, even if I never sell a piece, or get paid to sing professionally, or even if I don't share it with anyone outside my select circle (chicken: bwak bwak).

That will never go away, even if you decide one day to stop writing a blog. Never. I love the site, don't get me wrong. It's sort of like the old-fashioned salon... online. A place for creative-types to talk about their art, where nobody says "oh, look, it's Advanced Basketweaving classes" in that mocking tone, etc. The sand will never cover that track, hon. It's a mark that won't go away, in me.

That said, I understand your fear. When I stopped studying voice, and took a nine-to-five job, when I realized that opera was not in my future, for a long time I was terrified that that meant that I was that job. That I could no longer call myself a singer, that I couldn't call myself an artist because I didn't make my living off my little scribbles. But ya know what? When someone asks me, now, what I do? I tell them I'm a secretary by trade, and an artist by vocation. And although some people look at me oddly, once in a while, I'll get that look that says "I used to paint, or write, or dance; when did it stop defining me?"

You won't stop being a writer if you stop doing websnark. You couldn't. Writing for you is obviously food for the soul, or maybe even the air that it needs to breathe properly. Maybe fiction isn't your thing. Maybe your short stories suck (not that I'll believe that, you have too much talent and tenacity for anything you do to truly suck). Who cares? It's the creation that counts, isn't it? One of my favorite authors, Charles de Lint, writes amazing short stories. They freakin' come alive. His novels, while still a worthwhile read, just don't have the same living spirit to them. And this from the chick who usually hates short story collections, on account of them being too small a bite, and often the collection being disjointed, and hard to feel continuity throughout.

So if this blog is your medium, your special venue, please don't fear it, or think it less worthwhile than the printed page, darlin'. You're falling into the same trap as all those lovely webcomics. Haven't I seen you, in websnark, lament a long-gone comic that left an indelible impression? What's that, if not a forever-mark? I'm just grateful that you've found a niche that works for you, and that I've had the opportunity to share it.

One last If Wil Wheaton can turn blogging into a venue to sell his stories.... why can't you? Skip the publishing houses and their formulas, and go straight to the audience who loves you. Set yourself free the same way that the webcartoonists have. I'd so totally buy it, not because I feel like I ought to, like pledging to PBS out of guilt, but because I would love to have something by Eric Burns on my shelf. Then, years from now, after you've decided that websnark isn't your thing anymore, I could still read your work, and look forward to the next piece of your personal creative journey that you permit me to share.

Sorry for the small essay of my own. I seem to have trouble saying what I need to say without a zillion words, which of course is why creative writing isn't for me.

Oh, my god. I didn't realize that I babbled on so. Please don't ever let me post at 2 AM again! Sorry for cloggin' up your webwaves. I'll stop now. Night!

The simple truth is, they're not good enough. I'm not good enough. I can write five thousand words of blog entry that make people weep, but my short stories suck ass.

Hey, I own that t-shirt. The whole post, but that bit especially.

Craptasticness will pass.

You're a good writer. Trust me, I'm a scholar and gennelmun, as well as a man of wealth and taste.

Solidarity, mang.

CU

and I realize I want to lie down next to my words. I want to lie down and let the sands cover us both, until there's nothing left.

Do not make me come over there.

Because if I stop, there won't be anything left. I'll be hollow. I'll be nothing.

So you're saying there's nothing there but words?

I don't buy it. I've seen more.

Also, pretending that you are a professor might help a little bit.

(Also also, snarkpost just now is unrelated to other running issues. FYI.)

Can't say I know exactly how you feel, cuz I'm not you.

But I think know this feeling. Who am I? Who would I be if I didn't do this job?

Leaving the job was like jumping off a cliff into the darkness. I'm still falling. I might have changed into something else, something that drifts slowly, flattening, twirling, rippling through the air...

But the whole thing is an illusion, a metaphor to manipulate and try to make sense of this mess of feelings and wishes all tangled up with bills and mortgage payments. I have no idea who I am.

Way back in the early/mid-90's, when I used to hang out on talk.bizarre, billbill once asked "who would i be if i didn't eat cookies?"

I try to remember that question when I need some perspective.

If the Cookie Monster can survive being turned into a mouthpiece for better eating habits ("Cookies are a sometimes food," indeed.), then we can all muddle through even if we don't do what, today, we feel is an essential part of our existence anymore.

You have this amazing way of echoing how the rest of us feel sometimes. It's astonishing, really.

Typing

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On Making a mark that lasts

Re: On Making a mark that lasts

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yah

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