The Kenri Column: War of the Words
I love writing. Wait, I hate writing. Well, actually, I just think it's fun. Until it gets horribly, terribly, depressingly unfun. At which points it ventures into the territory of being the very antithesis of fun. ...Wait for it... A week later, new idea, and I love writing again.
Writing and I have a bit of a love and hate relationship.
However, let me back up a bit. Why am I writing this? Because it seems like the cool thing to do. xp's writing articles about his problems, Ogor's writing articles about his problems, I might as well do the same. Sounds good, right?
...We now return you to your regularly scheduled article, already in progress.
Crisis on Infinite Earths
Writing and I have a bit of a love and hate relationship. See, I have a vast imagination, filled by hundreds of thousands of ideas for characters, plots, settings, worlds, creatures, weapons, fights, relationships, quests, and so on, and so forth, that if I even try to round them all up, I will end up with a monster headache. I can spit out scene after scene in my head, word after word, for hours. Literally hours.
My problem comes from getting it on paper. See, that's what I can't do. I can't form it into a coherent story. Because in my head, it's all jumbled up. There's some vague continuity, but mainly, each piece could come before or after or in the middle of any other piece. There's often no beginning, no introduction, and so forth - the vital things that make it understandable to people other than myself. Thus if I ever wish to make a career out of writing, which I do, I need to figure out a way past this. Which I seem to be unable to do.
A one... out of five
Most of this seems to stem from my own Insanely, Monstrously High Standards (tm), which force me to find faults in everything. See, this allows me to criticize everything, and I can act like an expert on any subject just by pointing out the flaws it has. Which, it will have, because everything has flaws. Therefore, no matter what I read, I will find flaws with it, even if they're not flaws, per se.
My favorite example is Iago, from Othello. He's called one of the greatest villains ever, but he's introduced as "Iago, the Villain". What kind of villain is called a villain straightaway? Even Darth Vader wasn't called "Darth Vader, the Villain". Even though I'm sure this title affects the quality of Othello in no way whatsoever, I can't allow myself to enjoy it, because I feel like it's pandering to me. Looking down on me. I know he's a villain. He's being a bastard for no reason - of course he's a villain. You don't have to tell me he's a villain, I'm smart enough to figure it out. Obviously, then, you must be telling yourself. Which makes me smarter than you. I'm not reading this!
See my logic there?
I can do this for everything. Literally everything. And you know that thing about being your own worst critic? It's cliche, but it's true for me. For me to consider something I write good enough to "publish", as in, attempt to make money off of, it must be better than the things I've belittled. Otherwise I'd be a hypocrite. So I find myself trying to out-write Shakespeare. Tolkien. Dickens.
It's not going to happen. At least not now.
See? You put it on your desk, and then you can't write anymore...
I used to be able to churn out page after page of, let's say, less than desirable work. Of course, this was when I was ten-twelve or so, so it was amazing for a ten-twelve year old. Unbiased parties thought it was amazing for a ten-twelve year old. I was satisfied with that.
Then I hit the... rough portion of my life, where I got offline for a few months - this is before I even knew most of you, so you won't remember this. Cross might remember it. After crawling out of my little pit of angst, I found myself unable to write. I was not satisfied with anything I wrote, and thus, I pretty much gave up. I still collected ideas, but I no longer even attempted to put it on paper.
Rise from the Ashes
At some point about half a year to a year ago, I outgrew my "oh noes I can't write anymore" stage. Unlike what shounen anime tends to portray it as, after you hit your stunning revelation about why you need to pilot the mech, you don't suddenly become super-special-sexy-awesome at it. As absurd as it may seem, being out of practice actually makes you worse at something.
Try as I might, I could not manage to overcome my "rustiness", so to speak. Just recently am I starting to feel it clearing up, although I still am not where I'd like to be.
Young boy, become the legend!
Yet another problem whose origin lies somewhere in Kenri's Insanely, Monstrously High Standards (tm) happens when I actually find something that meets my standards. Such a thing is few and few between, and when I find something like that, I enter a state of "oh crap, nothing I do will ever be as good as that". I'm getting a bit better about this lately (it was really, really bad a while ago), but I still find it somewhat depressing that I'll never be able to match Catcher in the Rye, or even Evangelion or Futurama.
See, even things in other mediums are not exempt from this rule. "My books will never be as good as this cartoon!"
What part of that makes sense? None of it. Sadly, the lack of sense making doesn't matter at all to me, and I still find myself beating myself up, saying "dammit, why couldn't I have thought up Pokemon?".
I know you're supposed to set your ambitions as high as you can, you can do anything you put your mind too, etc... But, show of hands, how many people here think I could think up something as good as House, M.D.? ...You didn't raise your hand, did you? Don't worry, if you did, you'd be a liar. And I'm okay with that. I accept that there are some bars I will never reach. The problem (within a problem) is that accepting that doesn't help me. I still feel like I need to match what I can't match, and there doesn't seem to be any reasonable solution.
Gotta catch 'em all
Returning to the first point I made in this article, about how my head is teeming with ideas - at some point in the near (read: distant) future, I may or may not (don't get your hopes up) try to write something that will clear this clutter away for a while. A sort of "spring cleaning" for my brain, or a Crisis on Infinite Kenris, or something equally wacky that will almost definitely end in tears. Of pain. Yours, if you read it.
Expect the first (only) chapter (paragraph) within the coming week (decade).
Kenri of the Yuri is just this guy who writes silly things, sometimes. He is profoundly embarrassed about a good 60-70% of the stuff he's written. You might know him better as your friendly neighborhood Level 43: Editor. View his or her author page or author profile.
Rated 10 out of 10 by 1 users.