I shouldn't still be thinking about this . . .
but I am.
I don't like to be criticized. No one does, especially, but I really don't like it. I've tried to adapt a "shut the fuck up" approach when listening to people's crits of my work, which means I just listen and nod and try not to justify myself . . . and I can't always do that, but I try. Then I say "thank you for reading it," and move on, taking what I thought was worthwhile criticism and trying not to dwell on the negative. You know what usually happens, though? With rare exceptions, rather than telling me what needs to be improved or changed about what's actually in front of them, it becomes a "you need to go a whole different way with this."
And my perspective usually then turns to, "but . . . if that were the story I was trying to write, wouldn't I have at least tried to get on that tack to begin with?"
I'm not a stupid man. I may not be the smartest man, but I do have a modicum of wisdom and insight that not many share. I have found that most things in life are cyclical, and that you generally get out of things what you put into them.
If I even finish a story, then there was something worthwhile in the telling of it, so to come around some completely other bend in the approach to the same subject matter . . . well, obviously it's going to become something else all together. So, again, when I set down to do something, there's an objective to be met. What that means is that certain elements are there for certain reasons, and some of those elements are not negotiable. Should scenes be added? Is there something worth changing that will make a real difference in how a taut little tale hurtles toward the ending? These are worthwhile ideas that are worth examining, if not always employing. At the end of the day, it has to be how you feel about the work in question.
You know if you've written a piece of shit.
I know when I've written a piece of shit.
It hurts to put yourself into something and then have someone say, "Well, if I were you I'd have done it like this."
Then we're talking about something else.
We're talking about a matter of preference, so therefore my words are never going to sound quite right to your ears.
How do you account for that?
Well, there's only one way.
You have to go back to the beginning and try to please someone else's perspective of what you tried to do in the first place.
Writing is a malleable medium, and it is also the most thought intensive. Readers have to be just as imaginative as writers, and people don't read certain writers because their voice doesn't suit their ears. When you find a writer you like, you keep reading him.
You go through his library, and discover that his voice was true to your ears, or that one thing you read just suited you. That was the experience I had with Dean Koontz. Started reading him, loved the first couple of things, then one book just turned me off forever. That was just a matter of a really contrived plot device though, and I felt really cheated. But his voice changed for me after that.
The point is this . . . not everything that everybody has to write is for everybody else to read.
If something hits your ear wrong, you're better off just avoiding it without having to raise a stink every time something doesn't sit well with you.
And this is the approach that I need to learn when dealing with you hateful, anonymous motherfuckers who just lie in wait hoping to watch me crack.
Because you know that I'm going to, so you just hover here, poke . . . and I snap. You know why? Because everything hurts inside of me. I can't help it, I don't necessarily want to feel this way all the time, but I do. It makes it very difficult to get anything done. Is it ancient baggage? Yes, but it's mine, and that's what this place is for. It's for me to take a chance in venting my head. Maybe some of the crazy crap that I put out here someone's going to relate to? If so, that's great, because I know I'm not the only motherfucking person on the planet whose brain rattles a bit too often. So this place is a bit sacred to me because I want to feel like I can just put whatever crosses my mind out here without judgment.
And don't tell me how I should or shouldn't react to things around here, because I never made it your fucking business. I did not write something down and invite you to comment on it.
I know that's ironic because I keep the comments on, but that is because I believe I should give you the option of choice.
If you take that as an invitation to come walking into my head, then I am going to treat you as if you are a trespasser. This is my space, not yours. If you've got a fucking problem with my attitude, then just fuck off and go somewhere else. But I'm allowed to have my attitude in this place, you're not.
So when someone comes around here with a righteous statement telling me that because I'm capable of being frightened by a well-produced horror movie, but remain relatively undisturbed about real life horrors that obviously I don't get out enough . . . well, that is a personal judgment, and that fucking shit has no business here because this is my fucking place, not yours.
I want to be a writer.
So that's why I keep a journal.
If I kept this journal like the actual paper journal I used to keep, I can't even imagine what the fuck you people would be saying.
You're so lucky that I don't post my dreams out here.
Some of those would keep you righteous motherfuckers quiet.
I'd have shrinks quizzing me about being some gay serial rapist with a persecution complex.
I'm a humble creature who watches the world through a pretty amazed and consistent state of gawking.
Real life horror is unimpressive to me because I know what we're capable of.
When someone can make a fictional scenario tense and terrifying and horrific without cheap shocks and lame gags to "release tension," then I'm impressed.
That's why I so oppose censorship, because the world of fiction could never equal the horrors of humanity, so why is everyone so uptight about this moral bullshit?
But there's me going OT again.
The point is this: I want to be a horror writer, I have a hard enough time dealing with criticism of my work, I don't want to have to be judged about the things in my head so if I seem overly-aggressive around here it's because I am completely exposed out here . . . to a degree. And if ya come out here all salty, then my hackles go right up.
But what happened today was completely my fault.
What I should have completely ignored happened because for whatever reason I turned it up to 11.
I don't know why that happened, and I'm ashamed of myself because, after last time, I promised I wouldn't let you motherfuckers get to me anymore, and I did it again the first chance I got.
So, the next time someone says something that gets my hackles up, all I'm going to do is say "thank you for reading it."
Until next time . . . thank you for reading it.
I don't like to be criticized. No one does, especially, but I really don't like it. I've tried to adapt a "shut the fuck up" approach when listening to people's crits of my work, which means I just listen and nod and try not to justify myself . . . and I can't always do that, but I try. Then I say "thank you for reading it," and move on, taking what I thought was worthwhile criticism and trying not to dwell on the negative. You know what usually happens, though? With rare exceptions, rather than telling me what needs to be improved or changed about what's actually in front of them, it becomes a "you need to go a whole different way with this."
And my perspective usually then turns to, "but . . . if that were the story I was trying to write, wouldn't I have at least tried to get on that tack to begin with?"
I'm not a stupid man. I may not be the smartest man, but I do have a modicum of wisdom and insight that not many share. I have found that most things in life are cyclical, and that you generally get out of things what you put into them.
If I even finish a story, then there was something worthwhile in the telling of it, so to come around some completely other bend in the approach to the same subject matter . . . well, obviously it's going to become something else all together. So, again, when I set down to do something, there's an objective to be met. What that means is that certain elements are there for certain reasons, and some of those elements are not negotiable. Should scenes be added? Is there something worth changing that will make a real difference in how a taut little tale hurtles toward the ending? These are worthwhile ideas that are worth examining, if not always employing. At the end of the day, it has to be how you feel about the work in question.
You know if you've written a piece of shit.
I know when I've written a piece of shit.
It hurts to put yourself into something and then have someone say, "Well, if I were you I'd have done it like this."
Then we're talking about something else.
We're talking about a matter of preference, so therefore my words are never going to sound quite right to your ears.
How do you account for that?
Well, there's only one way.
You have to go back to the beginning and try to please someone else's perspective of what you tried to do in the first place.
Writing is a malleable medium, and it is also the most thought intensive. Readers have to be just as imaginative as writers, and people don't read certain writers because their voice doesn't suit their ears. When you find a writer you like, you keep reading him.
You go through his library, and discover that his voice was true to your ears, or that one thing you read just suited you. That was the experience I had with Dean Koontz. Started reading him, loved the first couple of things, then one book just turned me off forever. That was just a matter of a really contrived plot device though, and I felt really cheated. But his voice changed for me after that.
The point is this . . . not everything that everybody has to write is for everybody else to read.
If something hits your ear wrong, you're better off just avoiding it without having to raise a stink every time something doesn't sit well with you.
And this is the approach that I need to learn when dealing with you hateful, anonymous motherfuckers who just lie in wait hoping to watch me crack.
Because you know that I'm going to, so you just hover here, poke . . . and I snap. You know why? Because everything hurts inside of me. I can't help it, I don't necessarily want to feel this way all the time, but I do. It makes it very difficult to get anything done. Is it ancient baggage? Yes, but it's mine, and that's what this place is for. It's for me to take a chance in venting my head. Maybe some of the crazy crap that I put out here someone's going to relate to? If so, that's great, because I know I'm not the only motherfucking person on the planet whose brain rattles a bit too often. So this place is a bit sacred to me because I want to feel like I can just put whatever crosses my mind out here without judgment.
And don't tell me how I should or shouldn't react to things around here, because I never made it your fucking business. I did not write something down and invite you to comment on it.
I know that's ironic because I keep the comments on, but that is because I believe I should give you the option of choice.
If you take that as an invitation to come walking into my head, then I am going to treat you as if you are a trespasser. This is my space, not yours. If you've got a fucking problem with my attitude, then just fuck off and go somewhere else. But I'm allowed to have my attitude in this place, you're not.
So when someone comes around here with a righteous statement telling me that because I'm capable of being frightened by a well-produced horror movie, but remain relatively undisturbed about real life horrors that obviously I don't get out enough . . . well, that is a personal judgment, and that fucking shit has no business here because this is my fucking place, not yours.
I want to be a writer.
So that's why I keep a journal.
If I kept this journal like the actual paper journal I used to keep, I can't even imagine what the fuck you people would be saying.
You're so lucky that I don't post my dreams out here.
Some of those would keep you righteous motherfuckers quiet.
I'd have shrinks quizzing me about being some gay serial rapist with a persecution complex.
I'm a humble creature who watches the world through a pretty amazed and consistent state of gawking.
Real life horror is unimpressive to me because I know what we're capable of.
When someone can make a fictional scenario tense and terrifying and horrific without cheap shocks and lame gags to "release tension," then I'm impressed.
That's why I so oppose censorship, because the world of fiction could never equal the horrors of humanity, so why is everyone so uptight about this moral bullshit?
But there's me going OT again.
The point is this: I want to be a horror writer, I have a hard enough time dealing with criticism of my work, I don't want to have to be judged about the things in my head so if I seem overly-aggressive around here it's because I am completely exposed out here . . . to a degree. And if ya come out here all salty, then my hackles go right up.
But what happened today was completely my fault.
What I should have completely ignored happened because for whatever reason I turned it up to 11.
I don't know why that happened, and I'm ashamed of myself because, after last time, I promised I wouldn't let you motherfuckers get to me anymore, and I did it again the first chance I got.
So, the next time someone says something that gets my hackles up, all I'm going to do is say "thank you for reading it."
Until next time . . . thank you for reading it.
