Crisis of confidence

http://rino.rummage.net.au/oblique_writing.html

everyone bringing genuine real humane decent suggestions itt
what a nice surprise, 10 yrs ago

granted, there are only 4 replies, but i have been thinking about this concept/occurrence lately.

i don't know if this is a crisis or a burst of confidence but -- what does it matter if other people like what you do? does it matter if people even know that you are making a creative product? i find the fact that no one will ever care about anything i ever do rather liberating tbh. if no one cares, i can do whatever i want. that sounds ideal.

well, if you're writing, it's difficult to write (certainly to write well) without some conception of an audience or a reader. maybe it's even harder to have such a conception, so that you can write, without having any desire for actual readers or reactions or interest of any kind.

Can you substitute "write" with "play clarinet" or "dance interpretively" or whatever art form of your choice?

Or is the crisis of confidence for writers only?

i don't know, i think performers are more capable of being audiences for themselves, at least musicians. (hard to think of an actor doing the same.) there are lots of people who work up the classics just to play them for themselves.

some writers write for themselves. notably the famous journal-keepers. many poets who write mostly for themselves may also share their work with individual people—something emily dickinson was known to do in letters.

It is possible to write solely for oneself, but it would be rare to write in that way with an ambition for any kind of creative excellence. More often a solitary writer is a diarist, more interested in making a written record than in making art.

If people don't or can't appreciate the things you like best/the things which inform what you're up to, then your own success is going to have to be judged by other means. Something I find sort of heartening/ridiculous is being able to pick any towering, piece of art, however life-changing or novel & easily being able to find someone on the internet wearily, confidently dismissing it as if they're completely above it. I think you have to look at your own process & what you are/were trying to achieve. Even when people like things they are often v bad at understanding them, at least in a way which is of any use to the artist

a written record is art to some people

also Even when people like things they are often v bad at understanding them, at least in a way which is of any use to the artist huh? idgi

a written record is art to some people

you mean like this?

not what i had in mind, but sure why not

Oh, LL, I've been thiking about this a lot too.

After I stopped writing professionally, I stopped writing on spec, and then I stopped writing for pleasure. Then, I stopped writing, period. Five years went by, I switched professions, and now I don't write, ever, except for emails and on professional documents. When possible, I avoid writing in my second job: it causes me weird anxiousness. For a while I stopped ILX, because it reminded me of the writing I once did (and didn't do when fuxxoring around), and that struck me as really really sad.

I'd do a lot to get started writing again, but I can't summon up the gumption necessary to begin a new piece, or to justify writing as a better use of my time than, say, cooking dinner. Last weekend, an old piece of TV I'd scripted came onscreen, by absolute chance, when I was on the treadmill at the gym. I didn't really remember writing it, and I wasn't looking for it, but as it went on I thought to myself "damn, this is good," and in a nostalgic fugue jogged home to exume a bunch of old projects on my nearly-dead writing laptop. I found more than a dozen halfway finished pieces, including two decent novels in their latter stages. One was actually very good... up to the point where I stopped working on it abruptly in 2008.

All of this means that now, in addition to the regular old writing anxieties, I'm staring down the barrel of five years without any practice and six years without an inkling of professional success. I know this is all poor-me, poor-me, but it's starting to challenge my, err, general happiness. I feel that, on one hand, it's incredibly arrogant to mourn the lost of a creative ambition/talent/experience, and on the other hand, a shame to just roll over and move onto another stage of my life with little regard for a thing I once loved.

But how to start again – and at what cost? I'm happily married now, and bejobbed, and feeling secure and mostly fulfilled in my second career. I'm thinking about a family and places to live, long term plans and ... let's be honest, I'm absurdly lucky to have landed on my feet after bad years (detailed elsewhere on these dumb boards), but I can't shake the feeling that I've given up on something. I don't know that I can return to writing without help, and I don't know that it's /right/ to ask for that help. Or WHO to ask for help. Or just ... I dunno, why the hell I should do something as ridiculous as retreat into fictional worlds when the empirical one needs me more. And yet.

shorter: I am a codependent ex, and writing is my old flame

^^that's spin!

And yet! soda, you are so forthcoming and so dutiful, but it sounds like you're overanalyzing things. i think you should try again and start small, something that is easy to start, fun to do, and quick to finish. if you enjoy it, do it again. if you don't, then don't. at least you will have tried. nbd if writing isn't interesting to you anymore. i know people who have been engrossed in one art form and then been like, nope, i'm doing this now.

of course, i wouldn't presume to say i know how you feel. but i think i've felt similar-ish feelings in the last few years. hope you're okay.

xp
soda, maybe you need to disconnect writing from whatever it once meant and make an entirely new connection to it. it doesn't need to cost you anything, because whatever toll you were paying for your old relationship to it, you'll be going down a new path together that is toll free. try limericks. god knows, they're never going to drag you back to some writer's hell.

also Even when people like things they are often v bad at understanding them, at least in a way which is of any use to the artist huh? idgi

as in, approval /= insight. the way people experience & relate to art is so varied that people can like things in completely different ways & for completely different reasons. some people make great things by accident etc.

gotcha

anyway soda i say that with love! you should not make such a big whoop about your ~relationship to writing~ and just try to do some of it. if you like it, great! if not, maybe your new expressive medium is around the corner and you don't even know it. that's what i've been telling myself for years.

however, feel u 100% on this For a while I stopped ILX, because it reminded me of the writing I once did (and didn't do when fuxxoring around), and that struck me as really really sad.
i've come to terms with it but it stung

yah! I am always looking for a creative output. Things I've tried to sublimate my writing into:

– crocheting (for five months, until my mother in law found out and made me feel conflicted)
– gardening (two years, until I succeeded in killing my entire garden in a fit of chemistry)
– ukulele (five months, until I couldn't afford lessons any more)
– cheesemaking (ongoing)

ugh, been there
lately i have been drumming, which i prefer to any other form of expression so far even though i'll never be very good at it (compared to people who have been doing it for 20+ years)

I'm staring down the barrel of five years without any practice and six years without an inkling of professional success. I know this is all poor-me, poor-me, but it's starting to challenge my, err, general happiness.

then write! you need to write.

I feel that, on one hand, it's incredibly arrogant to mourn the lost of a creative ambition/talent/experience,

no it's not, fuck that.

and on the other hand, a shame to just roll over and move onto another stage of my life with little regard for a thing I once loved.

But how to start again – and at what cost? I'm happily married now, and bejobbed, and feeling secure and mostly fulfilled in my second career. I'm thinking about a family and places to live, long term plans and ...

what kind of example do you want to set for your family? if you're always going to be secretly miserable and full of regrets, are you really doing your future family any favors?

the crocheting, gardening, ukelele, and cheesemaking are just hobbies that you're using to distract yourself from the fact that you abandoned your passion. I can relate because I did the exact same thing. you have to make a choice: are you retired, or are you still living your life?

Writing at an intensely high level of concentration is very all-consuming, especially when you are in the process of converting yourself from an eager novice to an accomplished master. If soda is befamilied and bejobbed, then he knows he cannot duplicate that hot embrace with language that once seemed like the most engrossing thing in the world. I can understand if he thinks any lesser commitment could not possibly result in the same feelings of love and requital.

In my case I laid writing aside for quite a few years, then made a career of technical writing for a decade or so. When I finally came back to writing for the mere pleasure of creation I found that I did not need to bury myself in it in order to feel like my creations were happy ones. Other than closeting myself for a few months in order to write a book, most of my work has been occasional poems and other brief pieces. The craft was there still, and if anything, more fluid and frictionless. I'd matured my style without laboring over it. Don't ask how. I never stopped writing 'stuff', even though it never felt like 'real' writing.

All that I need now is an idea that engages my attention and if I like the result, a place to toss it into the world (oftentimes ILX). There is no pressure, only a chance to reengage with words as raw materials and maybe have a few dozen readers. It seems no different, and yet very different, than when I was 25.

LL: you'll keep getting better at drumming because you're eager to learn! and the clips you've shared on soundcloud have sounded good to my ears fwiw. as long as you can have enough fun with it to maintain your ambition you'll keep learning and developing your touch, and it will be your own touch, which is why it's fun

thank you! agree about practicing. i aim to maintain fun first and foremost because what else do i have? still, i am so eager. it's a fun experience (also embarrassing) as a teacher to be so eager about learning and rely on someone else's teaching to help me. agree about keeping the mojo up -- that's my biggest challenge tbh!

January 17, 1961

Hello Mr. Corrington:

Well, it helps sometimes to receive a letter such as yours. This makes two. A young man out of San Francisco wrote me that someday they would write books about me, if that would be any help. Well, I'm not looking for help, or praise either, and I'm not trying to play tough. But I had a game I used to play with myself, a game called Desert Island and while I was laying around in jail or art class or walking toward the ten dollar window at the track, I'd ask myself, Bukowski, if you were on a desert island by yourself, never to be found, except by the birds and the maggots, would you take a stick and scratch words in the sand? I had to say "no," and for a while this solved a lot of things and let me go ahead and do a lot of things I didn't want to do, and it got me away from the typewriter and it put me in the charity ward of the county hospital, the blood charging out of my ears and my mouth and my ass, and they waited for me to die but nothing happened. And when I got out I asked myself again, Bukowski, if you were on a desert island and etc.; and do you know, I guess it was because the blood had left my brain or something, I said, YES, yes, I would. I would take a stick and I would scratch words in the sand. Well, this solved a lot of things because it allowed me to go ahead and do the things, all the things I didn't want to do, and it let me have the typewriter too; and since they told me another drink would kill me, Inow hold it down to 2gallons of beer a day.

But writing, of course, like marriage or snowfall or automobile tires, does not always last. You can go to bed on Wednesday night being a writer and wake up on Thursday morning being something else altogether. Or you can go to bed on Wednesday night being a plumber and wake up on Thursday morning being a writer. This is the best kind of writer.

... Most of them die, of course, because they try too hard; or, on the other hand, they get famous, and everything they write is published and they don't have to try at all. Death works a lot of avenues, and although you say you like my stuff, I want to let you know that if it turns to rot, it was not because I tried too hard or too little but because I either ran out of beer or blood. [* * *]

For what it's worth, I can afford to wait: I have my stick and I have my sand.