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Why can't I write like I draw?
I have always liked writing. The first things I wrote were "Roses are red/Violets are blue" poems like the ones I'd seen in Bugs Bunny cartoons. I wrote stories about a rabbit named Alice, who was a being very different from me that I was afraid I was. I wrote tons of stories that I never finished, getting lost in my own plot by page twenty--always page 20--in the same way I got lost in my own school.
But still, teachers often said I was a very good writer, even the best in the class. One even told me I was the best writer she'd seen in her whole career. (Then she gave me a D when I didn't understand how to write a five-paragraph essay. I learned to write them eventually, but they have never come naturally to me).
I have always liked drawing. I drew the same pictures over and over again; during my "Tree Between Two Hills" period, a guy friend (not a boyfriend, never) looked at my work and said: "That looks like a butt going poop!" He was right.
I loved watching other people draw. Jim Davis taught me to make the eyes first; my notebooks were filled with mice and rabbits and puppies that were all eyes and ears and chipmunk cheeks, with only the suggestion of a head. But most of all, I watched Bob Ross paint. I loved how he seemed to follow where the painting took him, and would create whole landscapes almost in spite of himself. But most of all, I loved his "happy accidents."
Bob never ended up with the painting he started out with; he often made mistakes. And he always, always made room for them. He might turn a smudge into a mountain, build a tiny forest from a misplaced tree. But no matter what happened, he never got frustrated--there was always a place for accidents.
When I drew, friends might tell me something was "good" or "cute," or they might gasp in horror because "You made my head huge!" I drew things, but I was not an artist. I drew because it was fun. With writing, my brain poured over sentences before I wrote them, because a perfect sentence pushed me on to the next one, like video game platforms passing over deadly spikes. With drawing, my path was less jerky, less fraught with peril. I was taking a walk in the woods, and if my map blew away or a deer ate my breadcrumbs, that was all right.
Within the last half a year, I have been able to finish stories I've started. There are only a handful of them, and they are very short. Yet I signed up for![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
white_lotus's Lunar New Year Gift Exchange. The challenge takes me out of my comfort zone, but in a way I think I can manage. (I've never finished a story that's at least 1,000 words, but I'd like to try). And I want to write something for someone else.
But I am the best writer in the class, though everyone in my dwcircle is better. What am I doing in a writing challenge? I will ruin someone's Lunar New Year. "Where is the plot?" they will say."What kind of cracktastic team is that? Do you even watch this show?"
Writing fanfiction is much easier than writing about the imaginary people who live in my head, even though I've known them for decades. (It is, however, easier if I draw them in a comic). Still, I think slowly; my brain needs to play metaphorical Tetris for a while, and if I worry that the process is taking too long, that's when I'll suddenly know what I'm doing and my brain will blow me a raspberry and say: "See, I told you."
I've written 170white_lotus assignment words today. They are mostly good words, I think, that I can play with and clean up tomorrow before I write some more. Best of all, I know what story I want to write--but will the recipient hate it? There are things I don't do so well, besides plot. Visualizing the layout of anything--rooms, builidings, a landscape--is fuzzy at best, but the art book I got for Christmas helps some. I will have to write characters I've never written before--though I would like to try, and said I would write them--and the ones I have written are still a challenge. (I'm not entirely happy with how they turn out, but it's the best I can do for now). Will the recipients of my stories accept almost?
One thing I have just realized about fandom and which is still hard to wrap my head around is that we are all just playing with other people's toys. When I examine a character who belongs to someone else, I'm always worried about getting them right--definitively right. Thus, I'm terrified to write anybody. Canon doesn't give me enough to understand Mai properly; at 14 Katara has a maturity that I lack at 30, and she feels so totally and so deeply that, yes, I am afraid to jump into that ocean. (Although I love reading about Mai and Katara's relationship, whether as friends or lovers, with Zuko or without). Not to mention, I keep wanting to write Azula without the safety net of the thing she has defined herself by--and that feels like I've broken something already and is like handling a butterfly while making sure it can still fly afterwards. The more I realize that this story is impossible--I am just not that good, you guys--the more I want it.
And yet, I drew someone a picture. It wasn't the picture I started out drawing; it was not an artist's picture. It was, in fact, a lousy picture with tons of mistakes, and I made homes for all of them--even the one so egregious it should've broken the whole thing. I don't know this person well at all, but I wanted to draw her a picture. I wasn't afraid to give it to her, because even though it was horrible there was something in I liked. And she did, too.
Why can't I write like I draw?
But still, teachers often said I was a very good writer, even the best in the class. One even told me I was the best writer she'd seen in her whole career. (Then she gave me a D when I didn't understand how to write a five-paragraph essay. I learned to write them eventually, but they have never come naturally to me).
I have always liked drawing. I drew the same pictures over and over again; during my "Tree Between Two Hills" period, a guy friend (not a boyfriend, never) looked at my work and said: "That looks like a butt going poop!" He was right.
I loved watching other people draw. Jim Davis taught me to make the eyes first; my notebooks were filled with mice and rabbits and puppies that were all eyes and ears and chipmunk cheeks, with only the suggestion of a head. But most of all, I watched Bob Ross paint. I loved how he seemed to follow where the painting took him, and would create whole landscapes almost in spite of himself. But most of all, I loved his "happy accidents."
Bob never ended up with the painting he started out with; he often made mistakes. And he always, always made room for them. He might turn a smudge into a mountain, build a tiny forest from a misplaced tree. But no matter what happened, he never got frustrated--there was always a place for accidents.
When I drew, friends might tell me something was "good" or "cute," or they might gasp in horror because "You made my head huge!" I drew things, but I was not an artist. I drew because it was fun. With writing, my brain poured over sentences before I wrote them, because a perfect sentence pushed me on to the next one, like video game platforms passing over deadly spikes. With drawing, my path was less jerky, less fraught with peril. I was taking a walk in the woods, and if my map blew away or a deer ate my breadcrumbs, that was all right.
Within the last half a year, I have been able to finish stories I've started. There are only a handful of them, and they are very short. Yet I signed up for
white_lotus's Lunar New Year Gift Exchange. The challenge takes me out of my comfort zone, but in a way I think I can manage. (I've never finished a story that's at least 1,000 words, but I'd like to try). And I want to write something for someone else.But I am the best writer in the class, though everyone in my dwcircle is better. What am I doing in a writing challenge? I will ruin someone's Lunar New Year. "Where is the plot?" they will say."What kind of cracktastic team is that? Do you even watch this show?"
Writing fanfiction is much easier than writing about the imaginary people who live in my head, even though I've known them for decades. (It is, however, easier if I draw them in a comic). Still, I think slowly; my brain needs to play metaphorical Tetris for a while, and if I worry that the process is taking too long, that's when I'll suddenly know what I'm doing and my brain will blow me a raspberry and say: "See, I told you."
I've written 170
white_lotus assignment words today. They are mostly good words, I think, that I can play with and clean up tomorrow before I write some more. Best of all, I know what story I want to write--but will the recipient hate it? There are things I don't do so well, besides plot. Visualizing the layout of anything--rooms, builidings, a landscape--is fuzzy at best, but the art book I got for Christmas helps some. I will have to write characters I've never written before--though I would like to try, and said I would write them--and the ones I have written are still a challenge. (I'm not entirely happy with how they turn out, but it's the best I can do for now). Will the recipients of my stories accept almost?One thing I have just realized about fandom and which is still hard to wrap my head around is that we are all just playing with other people's toys. When I examine a character who belongs to someone else, I'm always worried about getting them right--definitively right. Thus, I'm terrified to write anybody. Canon doesn't give me enough to understand Mai properly; at 14 Katara has a maturity that I lack at 30, and she feels so totally and so deeply that, yes, I am afraid to jump into that ocean. (Although I love reading about Mai and Katara's relationship, whether as friends or lovers, with Zuko or without). Not to mention, I keep wanting to write Azula without the safety net of the thing she has defined herself by--and that feels like I've broken something already and is like handling a butterfly while making sure it can still fly afterwards. The more I realize that this story is impossible--I am just not that good, you guys--the more I want it.
And yet, I drew someone a picture. It wasn't the picture I started out drawing; it was not an artist's picture. It was, in fact, a lousy picture with tons of mistakes, and I made homes for all of them--even the one so egregious it should've broken the whole thing. I don't know this person well at all, but I wanted to draw her a picture. I wasn't afraid to give it to her, because even though it was horrible there was something in I liked. And she did, too.
Why can't I write like I draw?