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The Opposite of Limber is Limburger
May. 22nd, 2008 09:53 pmYesterday, I got stuck on set with no book and nothing to do, so I started to jot down a story in my notebook. I would like to tell you it began as auspiciously as "In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit," but, alas, no such thing is true. The fact is, I haven't written any prose fiction (adult or youth oriented) since 2002 - not even fanfic - and any skills I had in that area have atrophied. I write essays; I write scripts; I write poems; I write monologues. I have done the worldbuilding for six universes in which I have not gotten around to writing novels. None of it transfers.
I have said before (at the very least in a poem from last August) that I sometimes go to poetry open mics in order to deliberately hear bad poems; I find it helps me write. By the same token, I have a well-worn book of truly awful and unarousing erotica shelved not far from the aforementioned Lord of the Rings. Sometimes I write because I experience something deeply inspiring; more often, I write because I read something terrible, am appalled, think "I could do so much better," and then need to prove it. It's a gratifying way to remember one's talent, in place of competing with the very best things created throughout all history.
On that note, here is what I wrote. If you wish, you may read it as a public service, so that you can feel better about yourself as a writer. I should say that it's not really a story, so much as the beginnings of a premise - so if you have a plot, you are already doing better than I am.
Will I continue with it? Perhaps, sort of like the push-ups, because there is a freedom in letting myself be this awful until I get up to fighting strength.
( Read more... )
I have said before (at the very least in a poem from last August) that I sometimes go to poetry open mics in order to deliberately hear bad poems; I find it helps me write. By the same token, I have a well-worn book of truly awful and unarousing erotica shelved not far from the aforementioned Lord of the Rings. Sometimes I write because I experience something deeply inspiring; more often, I write because I read something terrible, am appalled, think "I could do so much better," and then need to prove it. It's a gratifying way to remember one's talent, in place of competing with the very best things created throughout all history.
On that note, here is what I wrote. If you wish, you may read it as a public service, so that you can feel better about yourself as a writer. I should say that it's not really a story, so much as the beginnings of a premise - so if you have a plot, you are already doing better than I am.
Will I continue with it? Perhaps, sort of like the push-ups, because there is a freedom in letting myself be this awful until I get up to fighting strength.
( Read more... )
