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RE: CONTEST: "The Keyword of the Week" / WETTBEWERB: "Das Schlüsselwort der Woche"
Honestly, I'm grateful that you would have me!
The last month has been the most writing I've been done in years. It's cool to finally develop a little routine and allow yourself to be read for once. Some things are starting to click, or at least I think I'm beginning to grasp how my process could actually look like.
I wish you nice new experiences and always a good source of ideas ;-))
Likewise! I'm trying to write a bigger thing currently but it's going so so.
A bigger thing... Tell me more if you want ;-))
I've been trying to write a "novel", but so far none of it makes a lick of sense. Not even in a good way. The tone is all over the place, the characters are more or less indistinguishable, and the dialogue is non-existent. When I'm not dealing with severe resistance I keep rewriting the beginning, over and over again. It's not even the first time of me doing this. Years ago I wrote like 160 first pages, which is already all kinds of absurd. That said, at this pace I might finish a first draft in, mhm... maybe 200 years or so.
Currently I'm wasting my time babbling about nonsense in random chatrooms and casting actors for this imaginary project of mine, just to be able to visualize something. Now I'm browsing the image section of various search engines and keep adding people into a personal picture archive, which sounds like one beer short of a sixpack. I do anything but write.
Let me put it this way: I have published a few books, but apart from two specialised books and a biography, they were poems and short stories. That's nothing bad or less valuable, but I just don't trust myself to write a novel. This is not due to a lack of ideas or too little stamina. It's because I fail to meet my own standards of stringency and credibility...
I'm beyond that, I think. I'll never live up to my own standards, which are pretty low to begin with, but each day I'm starting to care a little less. Might some form of sunken cost fallacy, maybe it's me trying to proof something, or maybe it's some bullshit quest for self-actualization. I don't know actually.
I terms of my credibility, I feel like it's largely non-existent anyhow and any hope for wider acceptance is delusional. Especially in terms of the industry and the kind of crowd it usually attracts. There's a million wonderful artists with perfect technique and I'm not one of them. So I figure there's no sense in trying to outcompete people at their own game, but rather being a little more "punk rock" about it. Less Genesis more Black Flag. Guerilla warfare, artistically speaking.
My main issue with the whole "just be yourself" kind of stuff is that I'm not really that interesting, or punk rock for that matter. "Dorkcore" might be a better word for it :-). But again, it's not like people would care anyhow, so why worry about putting a sticker on yourself? Anything would be an accomplishment.
I'm always astonished at how differently people perceive themselves compared to how the outside world perceives them ;-)) Rest assured that neither your way of writing nor you yourself seem uninteresting! Maybe you just need a push ;-))
You're sweet, but somehow I feel like my mom just complimented my macaroni pictures :-). Don't get me wrong, I take it, nevertheless it doesn't sound right. Most of my family thinks I'm crazy and when talking to regular strangers they'll touch their nose and say, oh yeah great stuff, looking at me like someone just farted. Others just cringe, or end up making fun behind my back. Then I remember one casual accquaintance saying, what could YOU possible be writing about, like I just told him I was a breakdancer. Which is cool, yet it feels like both compliments and insults are two sides of the same coin, or rather different attitudes towards mediocrity.
Btw. I like Steemit as a whole and wish it was more popuIar, but sometimes it would be cool to just say things, without having to look at a Dollar sign. It makes me think I'm fishing for upvotes, even when I'm not. Like the other day Kitty(?) was arguing with a guy about his generic comments and an apparent need for originality, but then the guy said Steemit was his life and how he was only sleeping four hours a night, when not working in a sweatshop or such. Kind of transparant, but if half of that was true he clearly had something to say, but instead of doing that every interaction somehow ends up being transactional, or rather a shallow attempt of gaming the system. Ironically enough his comments might be both more original and engaging if he could just forget about making a penny.
You know what I'm trying to say?
Hello @grebmot, I haven't seen your posts for the last 6 days. If you keep writing regularly maybe you will be more visible to curators. I know you're in the process of writing a novel but I suggest you to post regularly on this site.
Oh, I wasn't complaining about that. You're right though, I should post more.