Randomness

[samsom]

I said this recently, but I'll say it again here. Writing is hard - hard to coax the words out, hard to put them into some kind of order on the screen, to not use the same word repititiously, to find some new angle, a new light, to an old scene. Or to properly set up those between canon moments that live in my head. Hard to slip into a character's head, and sometimes hard to jump back out again. If I had a free hour or two, I swear I'd spend the time surfing flists and comms, instead of working the word doc WIP I've opened up. Other times I've got a little elbow digging into my thigh, and my husband nudging me every two seconds because The Man Show just did another funny skit -

-and the characters are speaking right then.

I wonder if this is what it means to be an artist. I never considered myself one before, there's such pretention down that road, but what if I am? Because why else would I be driven to write? Is that the difference, when you're driven to do it?

I've been writing, in one form or another, since I was twelve. So even though I've never been published, or even close to it, does that make me a writer?

Or is this still something I do instead of scrapbooking or backpacking?

Comments

[starlet2367.livejournal.com]

I think we all go through this, where we suddenly realize, shit, I've been writing forever. But I'm not published, so am I a writer?

Yes, you are. And you are published. Fandom counts. It also gives you the practice (and sometimes the courage) to submit work for publication in "real" places. Though I use the term "real" loosely since most of the writers I know professionally can't write nearly as well as my fandom friends.

[samsom.livejournal.com]

See, I've never called myself a writer before, to other people. I say "I like to write" and leave it at that. Writers, to me, get paid for their work, or that was how I felt in the past. Lately though, I've had a redefinition of sorts, about what it is to be a writer.

And you're so right, Kel, fanfiction blows me away with the quality. But I think for me it has to do with how much I care about the characters I'm reading about - I know their history, their behaviors, and such, so a really good story or 100 word drabble will just hit me in a way that original fiction doesn't. And that makes me wonder how many professional writers are running around our fandom, because sometimes...