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One of the habits on my "work habits" instruction is going to involve blogging more. Without fail the days in which I blog (and email Jack) regularly are my most productive ones. I could (and did) sit here and wonder about the chicken-and-egg question there, but I think it's more like a self-perpetuating cycle. Writing begets writing begets writing, after all. Keeping the words flowing helps keep the words flow. The reverse is also true. Clamming up about one thing, or in one area, makes me clam up in others. As I've said recently, "inhibitions are the enemy of art".
The weird thing is that although it gave that advice to myself at the start of the draft post for the current chapter of Tales of MU, I didn't follow it very well. Because right away the chapter started developing in a different direction than I'd expected. Something I'd thought would be a sideline, a sort of brief aside before the main action, started turning into the main action... and I sat there and fought with the unfolding chapter to try to stop that from happening, to try to force it to be what I'd expected.
Why? Because I wanted it to match up to the previous chapters' teasers. Why was this such a big deal to me? Because in one of my rare forays into the comment section on Tales of MU, I noticed somebody complaining the last time I deviated from the teaser. This comment shouldn't have bothered me that much, because it came from a chronic complainer who never delivers on his own teasers (i.e., "If things don't doesn't change, I'm going to stop reading."), but it stuck with me in the way that such things often do.
I suppose somewhere in my head is the idea that criticism is either valid or it isn't. I used to respond to almost every piece of criticism that I got that I disagreed with, with the idea that letting it stand unanswered was basically agreeing with it. I've outwardly given up on the idea that every blowhard who spews bile on the internet is a "critic" whose comments demand a rebuttal, but I haven't learned the trick of not letting it affect me.
I am hopeful that writing about this... getting these thoughts laid out and put out in the open... will help me there. After all, it was only after I started writing this post and started thinking about why I've fought with this chapter so much that I realized how reluctant I was to put up the chapter without getting to what the teasers had "promised" and connected that back to the comment that's been burning a hole in the back of my head.
I also need to realize that I have someone who's very interested in knowing what I'm feeling and thinking who I could have (and should have) talked to about how much the comment bothered me. Chances are good that telling Jack would have lessened the burden considerably. I'm still not quite used to having anybody to confide in, though.
The weird thing is that although it gave that advice to myself at the start of the draft post for the current chapter of Tales of MU, I didn't follow it very well. Because right away the chapter started developing in a different direction than I'd expected. Something I'd thought would be a sideline, a sort of brief aside before the main action, started turning into the main action... and I sat there and fought with the unfolding chapter to try to stop that from happening, to try to force it to be what I'd expected.
Why? Because I wanted it to match up to the previous chapters' teasers. Why was this such a big deal to me? Because in one of my rare forays into the comment section on Tales of MU, I noticed somebody complaining the last time I deviated from the teaser. This comment shouldn't have bothered me that much, because it came from a chronic complainer who never delivers on his own teasers (i.e., "If things don't doesn't change, I'm going to stop reading."), but it stuck with me in the way that such things often do.
I suppose somewhere in my head is the idea that criticism is either valid or it isn't. I used to respond to almost every piece of criticism that I got that I disagreed with, with the idea that letting it stand unanswered was basically agreeing with it. I've outwardly given up on the idea that every blowhard who spews bile on the internet is a "critic" whose comments demand a rebuttal, but I haven't learned the trick of not letting it affect me.
I am hopeful that writing about this... getting these thoughts laid out and put out in the open... will help me there. After all, it was only after I started writing this post and started thinking about why I've fought with this chapter so much that I realized how reluctant I was to put up the chapter without getting to what the teasers had "promised" and connected that back to the comment that's been burning a hole in the back of my head.
I also need to realize that I have someone who's very interested in knowing what I'm feeling and thinking who I could have (and should have) talked to about how much the comment bothered me. Chances are good that telling Jack would have lessened the burden considerably. I'm still not quite used to having anybody to confide in, though.
