Oh, Get A Grip!
by Aratlithiel
October 5, 2004
Okay, how many times have we seen the following scenario…?
Reviewer: Oh, this is so good! I love how you write! I wish I could
write like that!
Author: Thank you! And I wish I could write like you! You’re so
much better than me.
Reviewer: No way! You’re better than me!
Author: How can you say that? You’re so wonderful and…
Me as Voyeur of Random Comments: *rolls eyes*
On the other hand, there is also this scenario…
Reviewer: Oh, this is so good! So much better than what I could do!
Author: Why, thank you.
Reviewer on her own lj, f-locked and filtered: Hmph! Did you see what
Author said to my comment? I told her she was a better writer than me and she
didn’t even have the decency to refute it! Geez! Modest much? Tell me the truth
– is she really better than me? (Read: forgodssake don’t you dare tell me
the truth! I want to be told I’m better and the best and if she’s more popular
than me it’s only because she knows the right people!)
Why is it so difficult for us to acknowledge our talents? And why is it a show
of weakness to, in all sincerity, acknowledge the superior talents of others?
Obviously some of us are better than others and most of us are
intelligent beings, who should be able to gauge our talents against those of
others, if that’s the sort of thing that matters to us. So, why do so many have
such a difficult time making the distinction?
Okay, I’ll get the ball rolling: I think I’m fairly decent at this writing
thing. I can make some people laugh, some people cry, some people think and some
people’s hearts go pit-a-pat. I write all sorts of different things and I
don’t really consider one better than the other. My humour means just as much to
me as my gen and when I am told that I should ‘stop wasting my time’ on it, I
get pissed. My gen means different things to me than my humour but that doesn’t
make it any less important. I’ve been recommended highly by some and others
wouldn’t go near me with Gandalf’s staff – regardless of what I write.
And, you know what? Big whoop.
Yes, I will admit that there have been fics that have not gotten the response I
had hoped for and I got all grumped-out about it for a while. And there have
been others that I’ve written where it’s taken me longer to reply to all the
comments I received on it than it did for me to actually write the fic.
But here’s the thing and there’s really no way of getting around this: if you
write solely for the feedback, you’re only setting yourself up for
disappointment anyway, so quit acting so surprised when you’re disappointed. If
you write certain things to attract certain readers and then they don’t show up
anyway, it’s probably not that you’re being black-balled or that they’ve already
been prejudiced against you – you’ve probably just written something that didn’t
come from your heart and how could you possibly expect that to have the impact
you want it to anyway?
Look, I’m not above keeping an eye on hits and counting up comments. I posted a
fic a few weeks ago and was actually almost hyperventilating because it sat
there for an entire day and didn’t attract any comments. I was actually
embarrassed and contemplated removing the fic - even though the person to
whom it was dedicated and from whom I borrowed some material had said nothing
but heart-warming things about it. This person’s opinion was much more
important to me than anyone else’s because this was something that meant
something to the both of us but when it got right down to it and that comment
count stayed at zero, I was hard-pressed to just keep my chin up.
But, here’s the thing: I would have gotten over it. I know that’s easy for me to
say because the comments did eventually come to a respectable tally over the
next few days. But, after a discussion with a friend that first evening… okay,
fine - after that friend talked me down from the metaphorical cliff I was
standing over, I sat down and thought long and hard about myself and I realized
that I was being incredibly stupid. Not only was I being an ass but I was
lessening the meaning of the good things people had already said to me. I mean,
here was someone that I adore as a person and am in awe of as a writer and she
was telling me - me! - that something I wrote touched her, that she liked
it when I played with her universe. And there I was, all bent out of shape
because more people weren’t reinforcing what I shouldn’t have needed
reinforced. I was ashamed of myself and then I thought back to what that person
had said to me and I realized it was more than I deserved, more than I had ever
expected and so much more than enough.
And then I started getting other comments on the fic and didn’t get to show off
all my lesson-learning and hard-won acceptance and sighs filled with wisdom and
good humour. But truthfully, I was just as glad to get the comments.
Yes, of course feedback means something and I would be foolish to try and
deny that. But does it have to mean everything? Does acceptance in one
community and not another take that much away from our personal opinions
of ourselves? What the hell is wrong with us?
Hey, I’ve been rec’d and ignored and nom’d and won this award and lost that one
and been overlooked by this community and accepted into that one… And yes, the
rec and nom part is pretty fun and the losing part kinda sucks. But goddamnit, I
refuse to allow any sort of acceptance, rejection, bitchy-online-girl crap suck
the fun out of this for me. Because, isn’t that the whole point anyway? Aren’t
we supposed to be having fun here? And if you’re not - if you’re so
worried about who’s ignoring you and who’s not reading you, instead of those
people who have befriended you and to whom you obviously mean something, why the
hell are you here?
I don’t mean to say that, if my reasons for being here are different than yours
that mine are somehow better. But, geez, if you’re here to make yourself
miserable, you should probably figure out why that is before you start trying to
figure out why people aren’t reading you. And maybe the feedback/acceptance
thing adds to your enjoyment and fun and that’s fine – logical, even. But why
are we more worried about who’s not accepting us than we are about who
is? I mean, seriously – most of us here write hobbit fic and do we really
care that elf fans are not reading us? So, why is it such a big deal if het
people don’t read slash or slash people don’t read gen or M/P people don’t read
F/S? I can’t think of a single person I know in this fandom – and I know a lot
of people with a very wide variety of preferences – who does not have at least a
small following of readers who slather for their next fic. Why is that not
good enough?!?!
And why can’t we admit that, if there happen to be some people who have larger
followings than we might, that it might just be because they happen to be
better at what we do than we are? Sure, it’s possible that one is more
technically skilled than another and yet the less-skilled person has the larger
following. But couldn’t that be because the lesser-skilled person makes up for
that lack by writing things that speak to others? Isn’t it just possible
that what is sacrilege to one person is another’s close-held canon? And really –
who is to say which is which?
I have come to learn that my humour is enjoyed by many more than my gen. And I
will admit that I was a little confused and put-out about it at first. At
first. I work harder at my gen, I pour opinions and feelings into it, my gen
says something about how I feel about these characters. My humour is
really just the hard copy of the running dialogue that goes on in my head at odd
moments. I don’t work at it. I toss it from my brain to the keyboard and am
lucky if it forms some sort of coherent story when I’m finished.
And I will admit that I was floored when I first started putting out humour and
people actually laughed. I sort of suspected that my inner-dialogue would give
some people some chuckles but I had no idea that it would provide real
enjoyment. I took a huge chance when I posted my first humour fic because I
honestly had no idea whether it was any good and my biggest fear was that people
would laugh at me, rather than it. But when that didn’t happen and
I began to realize that more people liked the humour than the gen, I was a
little resentful of the humour. I mean, here I had pumped every unshed tear I
had into some of my gen pieces and toiled over just the right turn-of-phrase and
deliberated over whether I was saying what I wanted to say in just the right way
and people had the nerve to skip over those pieces and go right for the
chuckles. How dare they!
No. How dare I. Who the hell am I to dictate to people what they should
enjoy and what they should be in the mood for and whether liking the slap-stick,
low-brow humour of some of my stuff is somehow less lofty than liking the gen?
And who am I to assume that the gen is better than the humour in the
first place?! Sure, it means more to me but does that mean I have the
right to expect it to mean more to anyone else? And maybe it isn’t
better. Maybe it’s technically put together better and maybe it’s more
intelligent but hey, it’s quite possible that, in the opinion of some, my gen
sucks. O_o OMG, my gen sucks! Well… no – it doesn’t actually.
And now we come back to the point of admitting our own talents and acknowledging
those who exceed them… and acknowledging when our own talents might
exceed others’.
I have my favorite authors – we all do. I won’t embarrass them by naming them
here because I do enough drooling and fawning on chat and manage to
inadvertently embarrass them enough the way it is, without doing it purposely
now. But I’m wishing they wouldn’t even be embarrassed. I’m wishing they
would see in themselves what I see and not be afraid of sounding immodest by
acknowledging that yes, they do happen to be better at some of this stuff than
many of us. But how can I expect them to let down their guard with me when there
is potential for far too much repercussion for them, should they happen to admit
what everyone knows to be true?
Someone had a discussion some months back about jealousy and why some people get
jealous of the talents of others and is that okay, etc. And I think jealousy is
natural and understandable and I am certainly not claiming to be above it.
Except in this particular case. I took a long time to respond to that question
because I thought my answer might not be taken seriously.
My answer was: I don’t get jealous. I know what you’re thinking but I swear to
god it’s true.
Think about this: what would it be like for you if you were the most talented
person in the fandom? What if there was not a single thing out there for you to
read that was better than what you could have written? How would it be if, while
you were reading every single fic you found, ‘I could do this better,’ was
racing around in the back of your head?
Good god, how long would you hang around, if that were the case? How much fun
could it possibly be? How much enjoyment could you expect to get out of it?
Why are we so consumed with ‘Damn, why can’t I write like that,’ instead
of, ‘Oh, thank god someone out there can write like this and thank god they
share it with the world.’ Why is it such a problem to acknowledge and accept
when someone else is just plain old better at this than we are? I mean, am I one
of only a few here who likes to read? Is the majority of the fandom here
just to pump out fics, collect all the awards they can and then go stare at the
little buttons on their site? How fun is that?
Why can’t we just be thankful that someone is out there right now, banging away
at their keyboard in order to present us with a new way of looking at things, or
a joke that goes on for ten pages and makes us laugh the whole way, or something
that makes us ache and wish and hope? Why must we drag that down to, ‘she has
too many fangurls already, I’m not adding my voice to the din and she doesn’t
read me anyway’?
So what, if someone doesn’t read your work – why should that stop you from
enjoying theirs? And why should you resent it when that person ends up with more
readers or awards or whatever than you do? And, in truth, shouldn’t you be
grateful that they’re not spending time reading your stuff when they could be
working on putting out more of their own for you to enjoy? And since when should
reading become a chore? Do you really want someone to read your work
because you read theirs and they feel obligated to reciprocate? I’ll tell you, I
get the occasional email that says something along the lines of, ‘Read your last
piece, liked it. By the way, could you do me a favor?’ Honestly, that takes away
any warm-fuzzies I may have had and makes me seriously question whether that
person has any interest in me or my work, other than what I can do for them.
We need to get back to the enjoyment of reading because we like to read and
reading what we like to read – not because it’s the right fic at
the moment and not because it’s PC to like this genre and not another but
because the reading makes us happy.
The same goes for writing. We need to stop worrying about who might be better
than we are and whether we should hate them for it or suck up to them or just
plain be ‘chicks’ about the whole thing. If being better is so important to you,
work at it and stop spending your energy on complaining that you’re not.
The truth is I want others to be better than I am, I want to see
these characters through someone else’s eyes, I want to be able to lose
myself in someone else’s world and get to know it, hear the voices, laugh and
cry along with their characters. And thank GOD that people who can do that exist
and choose to share what they do in a place where I can experience it. If I
could get these people to write the plots that are running about in my own head,
you’re damn right I would and in a heartbeat. Because yes, writing is important
to me and it’s fun and it’s a vent and any number of equally important things –
but reading, getting lost in a world that speaks to me in some way is
so much more important and I would happily hand over my keyboard and never
write another word if I could get someone who’s better at it than I am to write
what I want to see for me.
So, when I say ‘this author exceeds my talent’ or maybe when I say to you,
‘you did this much better than I could have,’ I’m not looking for blushes and
denials and reassurances – I mean it. I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t.
And if, by some chance, someone says one of those things to me, I’m not going to
offer any of those things – I am going to thank them, admit to myself that it
might be true and walk away smiling. I suggest we all try to do the same.
Because, contrary to what my children may believe, I am quite the
trend-setter. ;)