(no subject)

[mrissa]

Are all writers cranky, horrible, disagreeable people deep down and sometimes on the surface, too? Or is it just me?

Seriously, I'm just feeling like disagreeing with everything in the last few days. I disapproved of the population of St. Louis Park today. 44K seemed extravagant for them. They could have done as much with 30K, I thought. That is the level of disagreeable I am.

And then I get two people who loff me well expressing excitement about their impending firstreader status, and what do I say to them? I say, "You'll be sorrrrrry!"

So I ask again: all writers? Or just me?

Comments

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

I don't think all writers are cranky, horrible, etc. But then, I don't think you're cranky, horrible, etc.

I do think that writers are often maybe more aware of when they're being cranky, horrible, etc., though.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

You do realize that this makes me want to plot a way to demonstrate my cranky horribleness to you, don't you?

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

Excellent. It'll keep you off the streets.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Oh, thanks, H., now I have to come up with a way to demonstrate my cranky horribleness to you in the street.

Writing

[mackatlaw.livejournal.com]

Stephen King, in one of his short stories in "Nightmares and Dreamscapes," said that writing is a gift invested in the writer by God. They can be a horrible person except for that gift, which shines through.

I prefer to spin that as the talent of writing being our soul shining through, and that there are many aspects to a soul, so different parts come out at different times. It's sort of a distillation of ourselves, whatever we've got running through our heads.

On the onther hand, it could just be that writing is a good way to channel aggression and darker emotions somewhere healther.

:)

Mack

Re: Writing

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I think that King is wrong. I mean, he's right that writers can be horrible people, but I think there can be such a thing as a talented writer whose talent is not a shining gift but rather a blight upon the landscape.

I think that some people are better people when they're writing and some are worse people. Some people distill self, and some people write from very specific chunks. Some channel aggression and dark emotions with writing; others feed them that way.

I know someone who essentially killed her musical gift by using it only to deal with a massive grief in her life. This makes me extremely wary of using my writing primarily as an emotional outlet. I tell stories. Sometimes they're cathartic in one direction or another, but when they aren't, I still tell stories, because that's what I do.

Blights Upon the Landscape

[mackatlaw.livejournal.com]

An example of that would be the issue of "The Filth" by Grant Morrison that I read last night. Normally, Morrison is a wonderful, though-provoking comics writer, and among other things, has written the extended meditation on revolution and utopia called "The Invisibles." I'd found that entire series to be full of quirky ideas, characters I cheered for, and generally thoughful, exciting writing.

"The Filth," however, was not only barely comprehensible in plot, but also included too many of Morrison's preoccupations that he should have kept to himself. I know we write about the things that interest us, but there was one particular sexual fantasy, inserted gratuitously in the middle of the plot, that did nothing but leave a very nasty taste in my mind. Far too many pages were spent illustrating this (which I won't describe except to say Im fairly open minded but open degradation tends to disturb me), and it didn't further the plot. The readers could already tell that the character orchestrating the fantasy was the villain, because he had previously arranged for the social breakdown of an ocean liner. Showing "onscreen" how the villain lived out the rest of his fantasies seemed unnecessary.

I'm going to hope this was an aberration from a usually good writer, and that an editor will catch gratuitousness next time.

I've tried al sorts of writing: I've tried to distill, I've written from preoccupations, and I've channeled my darker emotions and fed them that way. But I've come to agree with you that using writing as mainly an emotional outlet is dangerous. Once you start over-identifying with characters, writing yourself constantly into the story, and doing things to serve an emotional need, you neglect the tale. I wound up disliking my talent when I did this.

Some emotions need outlets, true, but writers shouldn't neglect the work to fulfill a fantasy. There are many places a person dwells in their mind; that doesn't mean they need to stay there. Building a story can be therapeutic in its own right. I'd like to try to take that philosophy and begin again on my own pieces.

Mack

[mechaieh.livejournal.com]

Can't/won't speak for the rest of the populace, but my head hurts, I gave up on an anthology piece (they wanted 2K, I couldn't think of anything to stretch beyond 250), and I CAN'T FIND ANY OF THE BLOODY KNIVES IN THE HOUSE.

That is, exacto knives (sans sanguinary stuff, of course). Exacto blade-holders, to be, well, exact. I've got 50-odd blades upstairs and a sheet of marbled paper ready to turn into prayer cards if I could only figure out where the hell I left the damn holders, and then I can go to bed and not be cranky at harmless sheets of fancy paper that can't help it if they don't come in neatly trimmed 5" x 8" rectangles.

*stomp* *stew* *stomp* *stomp* *slam*

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Ummmm. I don't know whether to hope you found them or hope you didn't.

[mechaieh.livejournal.com]

'salright now. Knives found, cards finished and delivered, on to photocopying handcuffs.

(I love this job!)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Honey, I don't mean to tell you how to do your job, but I think handcuffs are probably less effective on Kinko's paper.

[mechaieh.livejournal.com]

Kinko's, shminko's. The real problem is not having a grip on the stupid Transfiguration spell...

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

So even switching primary genres doesn't help. That's a useful data point.

[desayunoencama.livejournal.com]

Crankiness is nto at all genre-specific.

I do wonder if I am feeling so cranky because I am in the U.S. (and specifically in NYC). That is the hope, at any rate.

But then the crankiness will just hide deeper down and not be so close tot he surface.

[porphyrin.livejournal.com]

No, not just you.

Plus, I consider the 'you'll be soooooorrrry' to be a standard warning when I send anything of mine that's ready for alpha readers out onto the workshop.

These days, Roo is aware enough and able to comment:

"Mommy? Are... areyou... GRUMPY?"

Nothing like an editorial toddler.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I was saying to dd_b the other night that when a toddler is as good as our little Roo, you sometimes have to worry about whether they're forming their own opinions. But not with Roo! Opinions not a problem.

[ksumnersmith.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I currently feel like I'm a cranky, horrible, disagreeable person. Over the past week, I have wavered from this state to one of carefree, easygoing contentment, often quite quickly. Which means that over the last thirty seconds, my mental response from you has changed from "All people are inherently disagreeable," to "Ah, we all have times like that. Don't worry about it. I'd send you some of these delicious cookies, if I could." Deal with this evidence as you will (she says somewhat disagreeably.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

We should see if we can get Synchronized Mood Swings going. The only problem is that we couldn't be on the same Olympic team unless you guys annexed Minnesota.

Oh, wait: that's not a problem.

[ksumnersmith.livejournal.com]

We'd be a powerhouse! None could stand in the way of our extreme irritability and general disgruntlement.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

And we could use the Psychic Chocolate Link (you know, the one we're going to get to replace the Psychic Illness Link any day now) as a synchronizing factor. Lots of chocolate on days when we weren't competing, so we could save up the grouches.

Speaking of the Psychic Illness Link, I want you to know that I've valiantly fought off a cold each from M and T, so I'm doing my best for the team.

[mmerriam.livejournal.com]

Cranky? Horrible? Disagreeable?

I don't think mrissa is any of those things. or at least, not on the whole. Maybe if she's got something to be cranky, horrible, or disagreeable about (such as the population of St. Louis Park, for example), but not on the whole, no.

As for myself; only when things are going poorly with the writing. Or worse, not at all. Then yes, I can be cranky, horrible, and generally disageeable.

hhmm

I wonder if this is why writers tend to work alone.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Actually, I am much less cranky, horrible, and disagreeable when I'm working with a timprov, because I like him better than me.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm a writer and most people think I'm one of the most agreeable people they know.

Drop that into your sampling and see how it boils down.

Always the test-result outlier,
Chris

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Ah, but do you find yourself agreeable?

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Aha, the crux of the issue! Hm. Y'know, I feel pretty disagreeable quite a lot of the time: Bush, the Mideast, plagiarizing students, when do I get some time to catch up with things, why the hell don't we have real alternative power, why the hell don't we have a real space program, like that.

So maybe. Hm.

Chris

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I write. I am cranky.

I'm cranky two weeks out of the month, cranky when I'm hungry, and cranky when silly things (husbands, children, cats, work) come between me and writing. And sometimes cranky for other reasons, too.

[songwind.livejournal.com]

I'm frequently cranky while writing, or any other creative activity. Rumor has it that I am occassionally cranky under other circumstances, but I don't buy it.

Also, it is widely known that Harlan Ellison is very cranky in general, and Eric Flint seemed like quite the crankster. Larry Niven had a vague air of dissatisfaction with the existence of other humans. OTOH, anecdotal evidence suggests that Roger Zelazny may very well have been the Boddhisatva of Compassion, and Monte Cook is very pleasant.

I think it's a YMMV issue.

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

I've been cranky for something like three months now. Atypically cranky. No signs of abatement are forthcoming. This might be the new me. And I'm irritated by that. Of course.

[deva-fagan.livejournal.com]

I find that revisions in particular bring out my crankiness, especially when I feel like I have a big ugly quilt half torn to pieces and think it can never be beautiful and it's all been a big mistake.

Then again, I think I'm the most cranky when I haven't been writing for a week (or a month), though that's probably mostly because I become so darn frustrated with myself.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Revisions. Yes. With the cranky.

I can't decide whether it's better to splice other work in with the revisions to try to mitigate the cranky or whether it's better to just go through with them all and get the cranky over with all at once.

[mkille.livejournal.com]

For the most part, I've found that the people whose work doesn't make them cranky (with spillover crankiness into the rest of life) are the ones who can say, "Oh well, it's just a job." I haven't found many writers with that attitude, which is probably to be expected...

[mechaieh.livejournal.com]

*blinks*

That is a very good point . . .

And a corollary to that is that I've been least happiest in jobs where everyone around me is treating their work as "just a job." So there's good crankiness, where I'm stomping around because I'm frustrated with how the words/images aren't cooperating but know that I'm ultimately doing my best in something that has a good chance of mattering to other people (or at least entertaining them, or making some aspect of their lives a bit easier or more interesting), as opposed to the angry misery that comes from working with people who don't give a flying fig about anything other than how much the world "owes" them.

(Hm. I think some other stuff got tangled into that knot of incoherence there. Don't mind me, I'm going to slink off and throw around some paint. . .)

[mkille.livejournal.com]

As long as throwing around some paint isn't just a job!

[raecarson.livejournal.com]

*sigh*

As a writer-type person, I'm cursed with the evil Think Addiction which results in the disagreeable Opinion Formation. It's inescapable.

But FWIW, I don't find you the least bit disagreeable. :-)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That's because you don't live in here. My head, that is.

[greatestofnates.livejournal.com]

I think there is a typo in your post. Where it says "writers" it should be "everybody".

[scottjames.livejournal.com]

Yeah, what he said.

[pameladean]

I got so annoyed at a harmless bag of sweet potatoes yesterday -- it was sitting on the staircase. Why was it doing that? Because I had left it there, and yet it had not evolved legs and gone and put itself away in the refrigerator -- that I refused to cook dinner.

I think it's March, myself. The "Spring -- No! Winter! -- No! Spring! -- Neener!" month.

P.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I hate it when things sit where I leave them. The miniature coffee machine has not stored itself in the basement. Wretched thing.

There's a Dar Williams song with the line, "Can we live through February?" And I argue with the song when it comes on the CD (because I am disagreeable and) because February is a total piker of a month compared to January, when I go totally batshit insane, and March, when I only wish I was totally batshit insane.

[pameladean]

Tell me again why you left California? *ducking*

No, never mind. The spring and autumn make up for it.

Perhaps your miniature coffee machine would prefer the attic for its storage. Or maybe a dark cupboard. Or the back porch. My keys have preferences, I sure know that.

P.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Because two months is better than twelve for batshit insane. Seriously. (And I don't actually dislike January or March here. They just drive me nuts. August is the month I dislike here.)

The attic is where we keep Uncle Frank's corpse, so I think the coffee machine's options are the basement and the laundry room. It may prefer the back porch, but it is the coffee machine and I am the Mris, so I win.

[(Anonymous)]

If it makes you feel any better, David and I can argue and be contrary even when we are agreeing with each other. He thinks it's mostly me, but I'm not so sure. At any rate, I think that's a certain amount of the engineer's need to be right mixed in that makes it so easy to be contrary all the time.

Oh, and I get particularily cranky with everything when I'm stressed out about not doing things well enough by my own standards.

Heathah

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Of course it's not mostly you; Dave is totally wrong. I always tell people you're the most cheerful person I can like. So clearly it's all Dave's fault, because otherwise you'd be a total peach. Right?

[(Anonymous)]

Definitely. A TOTAL peach. Who is never, ever sarcastic and always sweet and winsome.

Heathah