Is depression affecting my writing? If so, should I stop? (do not read if you're fed up with my whingeing)

However bleak or exclamation-mark-laden the writing, it's been fascinating to read the takes on albums I listen to from somebody of a completely different place and background (ie: not hiphop/electronic-bred barely-out-of-teens Asian American student). I mean, yeah I guess most writers wouldn't be of that group, but the fact that you can take so much stuff (namely pop, last week it was like 'hear new record, see what CoM says, repeat') on your blog on a more comprehensive or personal basis always puts some strange "other"-type angle that is refreshing and often insightful.

and can I say a big mighty hello to Norman!

Type me sometimes....I miss yer prog-rock devil in capes wisdom.

i. firstly as a championship prevaricator w.prizes for rationalising non-finishment of projects, i am very hesitant indeed to assent to the usefulness of looking for reasons to suspend activity — basically i utterly envy yr workrate and excellence of output, and know howeasy it is to slip into thinking "oh i can't write today i don't feel like it", and before you know it a month has gone past)
ii. second, it seems to me that writing by marcello in the moils of such-and-such an emotion is still writing by marcello: in other words, i haven't seen any drop-off in the quality, so i wd not at all worry on that score... it isn't as if you or we are left unware of the surrounding circumstances, and i think this awareness, on yr part and ours, gives Church of Me tremendous force and clarity, even when i disagree with specific judgments or assumptions (cf what Honda said)
iii. third i suppose i wonder a bit abt the wisdom of keeping up such a relentless pace (though see i. for opposite view): i wd look to vary this somewhat, to avoid going stale, but i am basically also lazy and pathologically easily distracted, and that may be why
iv. fourth, if writing from the heart of a specific state of mind, a state of mind that you dislike and wish to escape, is by contrast trapping you in that state of mind, then yes, you should maybe give it a rest for a while... but this may not mean giving writing itself a rest, just the particular take or tactic that is the problem (cf what doom-e said)
v. it's conceivable i guess that focussing so unremittingly on each specific piece, day in, day out, is not letting you step back and look bit more strategically at where you're heading (in terms of Body of Work blah blah)... but you know the reality of that, and frankly it's not always helpful to discuss overall strategy publicly anyway, bcz it's so tied in to intuition, and yr own knowledge of projects to come and their meaning and gravitational pull

After all that, I've done two posts today, so the will to do it hasn't gone; just the physical capacity.

As for how your depression affects your writing, as you are a writer of criticism I'd say it is enough if you provide the reader with clear criteria on which your judgment is based, so they can see what you are about. Sort of like those math exams where you are admonished to 'show your work'. The reader can sort it out from there.

My advice is to write, so long as you are satisfied you are putting in a good effort. Let everyone else mind their own garden.

Lithium negates living - makes your mind clear yet placid/flacid; you, of course, were going to notice the changes to your writing.

Me? I can't get out of the starting gate sometimes with this rock'n'roll writing - I suggested six albums to review for one magazine, the editor picked me up on all six, and now, three albums are untouchable (two because they are originally indie releases that major labels are slobbering over and one because the release date was 'up in the air' and all that i had was a damn cdr). FRUSTRATING! I can pick the next hottest indie newest groove thang but I can't review it!

I love the three that I am left with though.....anyways enough about ME.

As I said before, combination of lithium and writing, I dunno. Unless the lithium is taken recreational?? But you will get through it - boast the ego up to olympic proportions again and write flawlessly.

I'm out of here!

otherwise, you are writing for yourself in therapy writing and forgetting that writing to a degree is performance. you are there to entertain. if you are only entertaining yourself than the writing in that regard is wurtzel worthless.

do you see what i mean?

i fucked that sentence up - it should have said - i disagree with writing as therapy or compulsive writing. *that* should never be for...public consumption.

Also I mean you can't like EVERY nu-pop release or you would go mad, so there's some burnout there too I think.

I don't know about you personally -- but if I have something I NEED to say then that's why I write, so I wouldn't worry too much about audience, etc. especially on CoM. Also I never really trust yr. judgement anyway, even on things we both really like or dislike.

Like I think that "Virgin Sexy" and "Angels With Dirty Faces" are the two best songs on the Sugababes album. Also, the more I know somebody the harder it is for me to seperate their aesthetic ethos from their personal considerations, and I feel like I've gotten to know a great deal about you from your writing precisely because it IS so open and honest.

I just really wish you'd stop using the word "punctum" no matter how great it is. Partly because I think you've turned the word into something it is not -- a flash of transcendence, rather than a moment which casts the rest of the work into a new light. Not that I object to repurposing words, but because yr. whole way of looking for and requiring these flashes of transcendence are why our judgements clash frequently. I think of punctum as a way of approach, rather than a thing in itself. And in some ways the task of a critic, from my standpoint, is to find these ways of approach to best aid in appreciation of the work as a whole, which means subliminating them into the body of the analysis rather than calling them out. But that's just me.

My thoughts exactly. I don't always agree with your reviews but I always find something interesting to think about in them, which is not something I can say with a lot of reviews.