So my question is ...
Jan. 29th, 2003 05:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
truepennyWhy is it that I can face constructive criticism on my nonfiction with aplomb, savoir-faire, and general sanguinity, while any suggestion that my fiction is less than perfect throws me into a tizzy?
I mean, wtf?
And it isn't the whole love me and despair for I am the Dark Queen and my fiction is as perfect as my face thing, because I may have greatly inflated notions of my own competence as a writer, but I'm not that bad. And it's not that I don't expect suggestions for improvement--or, god help me, that I don't want suggestions for improvement. It's not that I resent the feedback. And I don't really believe that saying, "I think you need to do more with X" is the same as saying, "You are stupid and a bad writer." No, really, I don't.
Except some part of me does. Every single fucking time. I seem to be fundamentally incapable of detaching my ego from my creativity.
I think this is also why I'm always somewhat embarrassed to talk about my fiction with other people (critiquing, cocktail parties, family members *cringe*)--it's a holdover, maybe, from childhood and trying to explain the games I played, which were always very heavy on the make-believe and narrative, and generally did get me the what planet are YOU from? look. It makes me feel vulnerable (as, again, talking about my nonfiction does not). There's too much of me out in the open with the fiction; there's nothing to hide behind.
I'm tired of this. I'm tired of having to talk my Inner Basket-Case down from the ledge every single time I ask someone for feedback. And it's not fair to my critiquers either; it fucks up my reactions and makes me not ask questions that I should, because I'm wallowing in this vague but pervasive sense of mortification.
I'd like to get over myself now, please.
I mean, wtf?
And it isn't the whole love me and despair for I am the Dark Queen and my fiction is as perfect as my face thing, because I may have greatly inflated notions of my own competence as a writer, but I'm not that bad. And it's not that I don't expect suggestions for improvement--or, god help me, that I don't want suggestions for improvement. It's not that I resent the feedback. And I don't really believe that saying, "I think you need to do more with X" is the same as saying, "You are stupid and a bad writer." No, really, I don't.
Except some part of me does. Every single fucking time. I seem to be fundamentally incapable of detaching my ego from my creativity.
I think this is also why I'm always somewhat embarrassed to talk about my fiction with other people (critiquing, cocktail parties, family members *cringe*)--it's a holdover, maybe, from childhood and trying to explain the games I played, which were always very heavy on the make-believe and narrative, and generally did get me the what planet are YOU from? look. It makes me feel vulnerable (as, again, talking about my nonfiction does not). There's too much of me out in the open with the fiction; there's nothing to hide behind.
I'm tired of this. I'm tired of having to talk my Inner Basket-Case down from the ledge every single time I ask someone for feedback. And it's not fair to my critiquers either; it fucks up my reactions and makes me not ask questions that I should, because I'm wallowing in this vague but pervasive sense of mortification.
I'd like to get over myself now, please.
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no subject
Date: 2003-01-29 05:37 pm (UTC)I think you're right. In some bizarre way the nonfiction is just "something that I can do." I'm good at it, but I don't CARE about it in the same way I care about the fiction. There's that lovely slight distance you can get with stuff you enjoy but don't CARE about that makes everything easy and delightful, and then there's doing the things you care about, and it's like being in the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan.
I am glad to know I'm not the only one.