Week notes: June 23-29 2005
Jun. 29th, 2025 09:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
soricelTeaching:
Nothing! School's out, and my creative writing workshop series is done. Yay!
Learning:
Didn't do any DuoLingo this week, and didn't attend any workshops or anything either.
Listening:
Nothing really.
Reading:
After a brief pause, I'm back to The Raven Cycle. Book 3! I really love these books. Honestly, I'm kind of whatever about the actual plot, and I'm not even head over heels about the characters, but I really enjoy the world and atmosphere Stiefvater has created here. Plus, I think her writing is just really good "at the sentence level," and I feel like at this point in the series she's having more and more fun with turns of phrase and little stylistic choices. Yeah, this series has been such a pleasure to read.
Watching:
More BBT. We've made it to the Mayim Bialik era.
Writing/other:
We've been in Paris this week! T. had a conference, and I tagged along for a vacation. I find that traveling is always really overwhelming and overstimulating at first, and this trip was no different, but eventually I got my bearings. We didn't do much touristy sightseeing stuff--T. lived here for a while, so she's seen/done all that stuff, and I can't stand crowds and whatnot, especially in the heat--but we ate a lot of vegan food (some really good, some mediocre) and did some nice bebopping around. The conference organizers also planned an outing to this little playing card museum, which turned out to be really cool--especially the tarot exhibits. It's been a pleasant experience overall, but we're ready to go home.
One thing that made me really excited though: so a while ago I discovered this RP board set in Paris in the late 1800s. It's the typical supernatural stuff, but I liked the idea of writing in that setting, so I dove in, adapting a couple characters of mine for that world. Unfortunately, the site was pretty inactive, so I sort of faded out after completing one thread and having another two left hanging. But then, after *months* of sitting there unresponded-to, an open thread I started got a reply! Right before we left for Paris! It felt serendipitous, and more than that, it made me really excited to retrace my characters' footsteps around the city. That was really fun, and it also helped me feel kind of grounded in Paris when we arrived. I shared some pics on the Discord server, and got excited to dive back into that world. Unfortunately, I quickly remembered why I kinda quiet quit in the first place. It's still pretty much just two people threading with each other, and very minimal OOC chatter. Just kinda...dead. It's a shame!
Anyway, this small experience made me realize a few things:
I've been *really* in my head about my "creative output" lately. Really feeling like I should be "putting myself out there" more, or at least trying to. I've got all these spoken word poems I've written--maybe I should try to turn them into a little book and get it published. Maybe I should build a website. Maybe I should make a zine. Maybe I should try to make another webcomic, or pick up the one I dropped. Maybe maybe maybe. But I recognize that all of these impulses are based less in a need to create and share something I feel is "valuable," and more in a deep feeling of inadequacy, a need for perceived legitimacy, external validation, whatever. And I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with wanting those things, and I think everyone who "puts their work out there" has a variety of motivations for doing so...but I don't feel great about the "neediness" of these impulses, and the shame-filled sense that I "should have something to show for myself" as a "creative" person nearing my mid-40s. I don't want to be driven by these impulses, and besides, when I actually think about doing any of the things I mentioned above, I feel kind of...heavy, resistant, gross. I'd like to explore those feelings more, but for now, I'm just noticing them.
On the other hand, when I got that reply to my months-old open thread, and when I got the idea to trace my character's walking routes around Paris, I got *so excited!* It made me think about the kind of creative work, and the kind of creative community, I enjoy and crave. I really like RPing, and I really like the idea/experience of creating something for--but also *with*--a small group of people. There are lots of other things I like about RPing, which I've already written about, but I guess for now I'm just noting the differences in my experiences/perceptions of "sharing my work" in these different ways. It's weird how the idea of publishing something--in a book, on a website, whatever--feels like both a way of gaining some kind of broader external validation and, at the same time, a kind of obscurity (i.e. a dusty book crammed on the bottom shelf of the poetry section in the local bookstore, along with countless others), while RPing, or writing fic in a niche fandom, feels both more obscure (at most, only a handful of people will read what I write) but also more nourishing and fulfilling (having fun, meaningful engagement with that handful of people).
More to think about here--and I sense I'm falling into some reductive black-and-white thinking (obviously trying to publish a book of poetry and RPing aren't mutually exclusive), or else missing/misunderstanding something basic and significant about the idea of making and sharing stuff, but for now, this is where my head is.
Nothing! School's out, and my creative writing workshop series is done. Yay!
Learning:
Didn't do any DuoLingo this week, and didn't attend any workshops or anything either.
Listening:
Nothing really.
Reading:
After a brief pause, I'm back to The Raven Cycle. Book 3! I really love these books. Honestly, I'm kind of whatever about the actual plot, and I'm not even head over heels about the characters, but I really enjoy the world and atmosphere Stiefvater has created here. Plus, I think her writing is just really good "at the sentence level," and I feel like at this point in the series she's having more and more fun with turns of phrase and little stylistic choices. Yeah, this series has been such a pleasure to read.
Watching:
More BBT. We've made it to the Mayim Bialik era.
Writing/other:
We've been in Paris this week! T. had a conference, and I tagged along for a vacation. I find that traveling is always really overwhelming and overstimulating at first, and this trip was no different, but eventually I got my bearings. We didn't do much touristy sightseeing stuff--T. lived here for a while, so she's seen/done all that stuff, and I can't stand crowds and whatnot, especially in the heat--but we ate a lot of vegan food (some really good, some mediocre) and did some nice bebopping around. The conference organizers also planned an outing to this little playing card museum, which turned out to be really cool--especially the tarot exhibits. It's been a pleasant experience overall, but we're ready to go home.
One thing that made me really excited though: so a while ago I discovered this RP board set in Paris in the late 1800s. It's the typical supernatural stuff, but I liked the idea of writing in that setting, so I dove in, adapting a couple characters of mine for that world. Unfortunately, the site was pretty inactive, so I sort of faded out after completing one thread and having another two left hanging. But then, after *months* of sitting there unresponded-to, an open thread I started got a reply! Right before we left for Paris! It felt serendipitous, and more than that, it made me really excited to retrace my characters' footsteps around the city. That was really fun, and it also helped me feel kind of grounded in Paris when we arrived. I shared some pics on the Discord server, and got excited to dive back into that world. Unfortunately, I quickly remembered why I kinda quiet quit in the first place. It's still pretty much just two people threading with each other, and very minimal OOC chatter. Just kinda...dead. It's a shame!
Anyway, this small experience made me realize a few things:
I've been *really* in my head about my "creative output" lately. Really feeling like I should be "putting myself out there" more, or at least trying to. I've got all these spoken word poems I've written--maybe I should try to turn them into a little book and get it published. Maybe I should build a website. Maybe I should make a zine. Maybe I should try to make another webcomic, or pick up the one I dropped. Maybe maybe maybe. But I recognize that all of these impulses are based less in a need to create and share something I feel is "valuable," and more in a deep feeling of inadequacy, a need for perceived legitimacy, external validation, whatever. And I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with wanting those things, and I think everyone who "puts their work out there" has a variety of motivations for doing so...but I don't feel great about the "neediness" of these impulses, and the shame-filled sense that I "should have something to show for myself" as a "creative" person nearing my mid-40s. I don't want to be driven by these impulses, and besides, when I actually think about doing any of the things I mentioned above, I feel kind of...heavy, resistant, gross. I'd like to explore those feelings more, but for now, I'm just noticing them.
On the other hand, when I got that reply to my months-old open thread, and when I got the idea to trace my character's walking routes around Paris, I got *so excited!* It made me think about the kind of creative work, and the kind of creative community, I enjoy and crave. I really like RPing, and I really like the idea/experience of creating something for--but also *with*--a small group of people. There are lots of other things I like about RPing, which I've already written about, but I guess for now I'm just noting the differences in my experiences/perceptions of "sharing my work" in these different ways. It's weird how the idea of publishing something--in a book, on a website, whatever--feels like both a way of gaining some kind of broader external validation and, at the same time, a kind of obscurity (i.e. a dusty book crammed on the bottom shelf of the poetry section in the local bookstore, along with countless others), while RPing, or writing fic in a niche fandom, feels both more obscure (at most, only a handful of people will read what I write) but also more nourishing and fulfilling (having fun, meaningful engagement with that handful of people).
More to think about here--and I sense I'm falling into some reductive black-and-white thinking (obviously trying to publish a book of poetry and RPing aren't mutually exclusive), or else missing/misunderstanding something basic and significant about the idea of making and sharing stuff, but for now, this is where my head is.
