For someone who claims to be a writer...

[partly]

I'm a lousy communicator. Especially as of late. You would think that my silence is just the usual not getting around to posting something, but it's not.

I can't seem to tell people what it is I want to say. Worse, it seems that I can't even *hear* what people are saying to me. At work or in writing or even on a couple of newsgroups, I seem to be getting it all wrong. "Boy that's a great idea," the discussion goes, "if only someone who could write/express themselves clearly would do it." I'm either too slow or too impatient. If I go with what I think they are talking about, I get nailed for making assumptions or I'm seen as disinterested. If I ask questions, I'm told to just be patient or to stop being rude to people who are just trying to share some ideas. If it were just online I'd chalk it up to the vagaries of the internet, but it's not.

Right now I find myself living by the credo "Better to remain silent and thought a fool than open your mouth and remove all doubt". I was trying to explain my feelings on this matter to a friend (and once failing miserably) and she said I shouldn't care what other people think. I thought about that. I really wondered if the reason I don't say things is because I'm afraid what other people will think of me. But that's not the problem. As long as I believe in what I'm saying/writing/doing I really don't care what others think of me. You want to think me an idiot go ahead. What I hate is *being* that idiot.

What I hate is being faced with the unavoidable truth that I'm too dumb or uneducated or unworldly to understand what people are trying to say to me. That I can't express myself in manner that interests people.

I don't know. It may just be a run of bad luck and a virulent strain of pessimism that has me in it's hold. But lately I've been thinking about how many people I like and respect who no longer have an interest in reading what I write. Thinking about how many times I've opened my mouth and proved my idiocy by asking them to do so only to have them beg off because they'd rather no tell the truth. Thinking about how reluctant I am to ask new people -- people whom I like and respect -- to read what I write because I'd rather have my friends not read my stuff because I don't ask, then not read it because it's crap.

Mostly I find that I can no longer truly decide how much of all of this is insecurity and how much is truth. And I hate that.

Comments

[amilyn.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

[donnickcottage.livejournal.com]

Wow! You need a long nap! You're no idiot. It's all insecurity. People can be dinks. Don't take it to heart.

[finabair.livejournal.com]

Mostly you're just out of patience lately - if someone's trying to tell you something that takes 4 sentences to explain, you're annoyed at 2 because you don't yet understand it. (Yes, this is oversimplified. But it is happening, to some extent.) Nobody cares if you don't understand yet when they're not done explaining, except for you.

You're perfectly capable of understanding most things, and anyone who says differently is full of crap - and I'm including yourself in that group.

You are normally a fairly patient person, and I can't help but worry about you when you're this impatient. But I do understand. *hugs*

Now, I have to disappear back to work, get my samples running so I can run to Milwaukee, and get myself out the door. I don't mean to say stuff like this and then disappear so you can't talk back to me right away, but I'm afraid it's unavoidable, unless I wait to post this until I get back.

Oh, and -

[finabair.livejournal.com]

As for your writing: Back in college, I took installments of your writing with me to work, and the OTHER people at work (like the librarian) would sneak in and read it when I was busy, and they were always waiting anxiously for the next installment of it. Your writing has only improved since those days, at least from what you've let me see.

Yes, people can suggest improvements. People can suggest improvements to Shakespeare. And if you think you should be writing better than Shakespeare, someone needs a swift kick with the clue trout. Most of people's suggested improvements are going to be towards their own personal preferences rather than an actual improvement on the writing. Sometimes, you agree with them, and you change it. Other times, you look at it and say, "Nope, now you're trying to make it into YOUR writing instead of mine," and you DON'T. Or, you shouldn't be. (And YOU taught me to watch for wanting to do that when I read stuff for people!)

If somebody walked into your kitchen, looked around, and said, "It would work best if you put the knives over here," would you move them, unless it made sense to the way YOU work? It's no different with writing. Other people's routine is different from yours. Their idea of "what's best" doesn't and SHOULDN'T match yours. But it's useful to get feedback because sometimes they'll notice something you do need to fix (logic errors, changed names midstream, changed tense midstream) or they'll make a comment that gives you insight into how a reader is taking something that tells you you need to clarify.

However, if all the feedback you're getting is, "You don't change to a new scene quickly enough for my short attention span," THAT isn't terribly useful. Yes, pacing is important. But not all writing needs to be rapidly paced - I think, for example, that The Da Vinci Code worked far better as a movie than as a book, because when you're reading it, you get TIRED, it's so rapidly paced. But that's my take, and my tastes, and there is no reason anyone should change it because of my tastes. (And it is possible to go too slowly for my tastes as well - as is generally the case with Ernest Hemingway's stuff.)

So give yourself some slack on the writing stuff. I get being nervous about your work's reception, but you're taking 'nervous' to whole bad levels, here.