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Nov. 28th, 2012 07:32 pmAugust 19th, http://philippos42.livejournal.com/225970.html
I've been ashamed of that post for a while now. I've written embarrassing posts, angry posts, stupid posts, friend-losing posts. This may be the worst post.
I don't remember what the idea was. It's just gone. It's been gone. I could at least make notes of things like this, pitch them so others can flesh them out. Then they would have a chance at life. Instead I just killed that idea and went on with my pathetic self-hating life.
There's something I realized in the last few hours. My whole life, I have been thinking in terms of being creative, of being a writer or some kind of creative artist, an author of a work, not just a technician fleshing out someone else's story. Even if at the time I thought it was about acting or film production or music, it was about making something--my opus.
Oh, sure, I went through long periods of thinking that fiction was not for me, that it was more important to live life than to imagine it. But I was defining that in terms of, "If I'm not a writer." For a long while now, I have been, really, "not a writer." A failed writer trying not to think of myself as a writer.
But where other people might want kids or their own business or a degree, what I have wanted all along was to have a creative legacy. Maybe in film rather than prose, maybe nonfiction instead of fiction, but I wanted a work with my name on it. I want to be known for a work more than I want to do the work.
I know I'm oversimplifying. I did go through my period where I wanted to be a photographer, and another where I wanted to be a statesman. Sometimes I thought I could channel the drive to make into something physical like fruit tree breeding or architecture, that that might be better for my ambition. But really, I'm a frustrated creative person, who comes up with characters and then can't write their stories, or imagines stories in fair detail but somehow balks at writing them down.
I have worried that I wanted to write books because I read books, that I wanted to sing because I listened to music, that I wanted to go into politics because I followed politics, that it was only stupid imitation of things I find interesting with no aptitude to be able to do it.
I think I do have some aptitude as a photographer; why am I not a photographer? (Well, there's a reason for that; that's another story.) I quit photography a long time ago, and I don't really run around thinking I really should try to be Eisenstadt now (though I did for a long time).
But creating characters, that's always been there, or at least it's recurred an awful lot. Whether making up characters for stories, or imagining a person I wanted to make myself into. That's a pretty basic part of me. No use denying it.
And that means I'm not really cut out to make a career of being an editor or a critic of others' work, which were ideas I had at various points.
So here's the thing. I'm not a writer. I may never be. I may never make a living at it. But if I have an idea for a premise, or a pitch, I want to post it so it's out there and it has a chance at life. Maybe it can be fleshed out or even produced as a film instead of yet another treatment of some character we've seen a dozen times before.
So, I have this detective fiction concept, and maybe I should try writing stories in it without explaining it, but that would mean actually writing narrative instead pretending I'll write narrative someday, and while that would make more sense, it's never going to happen.
Oh, yeah. Never mind.
I've been ashamed of that post for a while now. I've written embarrassing posts, angry posts, stupid posts, friend-losing posts. This may be the worst post.
I don't remember what the idea was. It's just gone. It's been gone. I could at least make notes of things like this, pitch them so others can flesh them out. Then they would have a chance at life. Instead I just killed that idea and went on with my pathetic self-hating life.
There's something I realized in the last few hours. My whole life, I have been thinking in terms of being creative, of being a writer or some kind of creative artist, an author of a work, not just a technician fleshing out someone else's story. Even if at the time I thought it was about acting or film production or music, it was about making something--my opus.
Oh, sure, I went through long periods of thinking that fiction was not for me, that it was more important to live life than to imagine it. But I was defining that in terms of, "If I'm not a writer." For a long while now, I have been, really, "not a writer." A failed writer trying not to think of myself as a writer.
But where other people might want kids or their own business or a degree, what I have wanted all along was to have a creative legacy. Maybe in film rather than prose, maybe nonfiction instead of fiction, but I wanted a work with my name on it. I want to be known for a work more than I want to do the work.
I know I'm oversimplifying. I did go through my period where I wanted to be a photographer, and another where I wanted to be a statesman. Sometimes I thought I could channel the drive to make into something physical like fruit tree breeding or architecture, that that might be better for my ambition. But really, I'm a frustrated creative person, who comes up with characters and then can't write their stories, or imagines stories in fair detail but somehow balks at writing them down.
I have worried that I wanted to write books because I read books, that I wanted to sing because I listened to music, that I wanted to go into politics because I followed politics, that it was only stupid imitation of things I find interesting with no aptitude to be able to do it.
I think I do have some aptitude as a photographer; why am I not a photographer? (Well, there's a reason for that; that's another story.) I quit photography a long time ago, and I don't really run around thinking I really should try to be Eisenstadt now (though I did for a long time).
But creating characters, that's always been there, or at least it's recurred an awful lot. Whether making up characters for stories, or imagining a person I wanted to make myself into. That's a pretty basic part of me. No use denying it.
And that means I'm not really cut out to make a career of being an editor or a critic of others' work, which were ideas I had at various points.
So here's the thing. I'm not a writer. I may never be. I may never make a living at it. But if I have an idea for a premise, or a pitch, I want to post it so it's out there and it has a chance at life. Maybe it can be fleshed out or even produced as a film instead of yet another treatment of some character we've seen a dozen times before.