Hello! I hope you are doing well, dear reader, whoever and wherever you are. December is hectic and I wish you as lovely a holiday season as is possible for you. This is my last pre-Jesusfest update. Yes that’s what I call Christmas. Seems only fair, it’s the dude’s birthday after all.
In honour of Santa’s stalker list and also in honour of a great tradition of 2000s-2010s blog culture, today’s update features an egocentric list:
My writing strengths and weaknesses! More accurately, strengths/loves and weaknesses/dislikes. Wow, how articulate. No matter, let’s get into it while I ignore the voice in my head that says no-one is interested in this shit because this is the kind of stuff I love to read from other artists of all kinds and also, god, it doesn’t matter but also I hope you enjoy this and if not then OOPS they can’t all be bangers huh:
STRENGTHS/LOVES: some things I think I do well and/or greatly enjoy writing :)
Before we start, can I note that strengths has a fascinating 1:8 vowel/consonant ratio? How novel for the English language. Anyway, here goes, STRENGTHS/LOVES that I’ll talk about, because it’s nice to focus on the positives and recognise one’s own abilities and if this sounds excessively narcissistic then 1) have you ever considered being kinder to yourself and dwelling more on the bright spots in this oftentimes cold cold world? and 2) don’t worry, there’s the weaknesses section coming up right after this:
Prose … generally. A boring and arrogant choice to start with on a list of things I think I do well, because I get my thrills from trying to alienate an audience, clearly. But hey, either I’m right about this and it means readers get to enjoy nice prose, or I’m wrong and you get to enjoy cringing at my delusional lack of self-awareness whenever I share some writing. We all win <3
Figurative language. I have a good time with it, it comes pretty naturally, and I can think of two whole people who have specifically pointed out metaphors in my work that they like. Sweet!
Intense crushes/attraction. God this is so fun to write. I LOVE writing characters having meltdowns about how much they want people. Delicious. I’m one of those normals/freaks (depending on your perspective) who greatly enjoys the experience of limerence (going insane about a crush) and writing is a way to enjoy that in a minimally life-disrupting way. It’s like that thing Lin-Manuel Miranda said about how through writing he gets to indulge in all these things that appeal for some reason but he doesn’t actually want For Real in his life, like duels and affairs and stuff. This is why making up stories is such a fun time.
Sexual/romantic ANGST and PAIN (emotional). Unrequited love! Break-ups! Betrayal! Sexual tension fraught with tons of reasons why it’d be a Bad Idea! Exes hooking up! Hating someone but also wanting them! People wanting desperately to be together but they (think they) can’t for some reason! Also very fun to write. (Do I find platonic/familial/etc. angst and pain also appealing? Ehh, probably to some degree, because pain in general is often fun to write about in fiction, but I think I find it a little less entertaining/it comes less naturally to me, which is why I don’t do it as much.)
Violence (of the flashy and bloody variety) and also pain (physical). You might be seeing a theme here. Apparently when I was three years old or whatever a family friend asked me if I wanted dolls to play with and I responded with a resounding ‘No! I want KNIVES and GUNS.’ I have no memory of this. Look, okay, I feel the need to state explicitly here that in real life I have no interest in experiencing or inflicting harmful violence/pain on people or myself. But in fiction? Mmmm yes. That said, I’ve noticed I tend only to enjoy, like, violence that’s at least somewhat … stylish. Like, a knife fight between a vampire and a hunter for example. And I like the violence to be … fast? Like. Swordfights, guns, flashy magic, yes. Any kind of slow deliberate inflicting of pain, I’m fucking out. FUCK that. That shit can fuck right off. I’m never watching a Saw movie or any gory horror movie. There was a scene in Jack Reacher when someone threatened to cut someone’s finger off and I just could not.
Banter, quippy dialogue, flirting, etc. People giving each other shit. Joking around, flirting, teasing, roasting, it’s all very fun (in writing and real life, unlike a couple other items on this list).
The SIN of LUST. Sexual content. Erotica. Porn. Smut. Whatever you call it. None of these names are good except sexual content (which sounds a bit too clinical still) which is why the title here was goofy instead. Anyway, this one’s gotta be the least surprising item on this list, huh?
And now, to present the Dark Counterpart to this list…
WEAKNESSES/DISLIKES: self-explanatory, in fact I don’t know why I had a subtitle for strengths/loves
Setting. Like, physical locations. I have noticed recently that I seem to do not-quite-but-close-to fuck all in terms of creating a richly woven setting in which all this crushing and sex and witty repartee and violence takes place. If I’m picturing a place clearly, then I don’t have much trouble describing it, but it doesn’t seem to come naturally to me to really set the scene?? I want to get better at this.
Miscellaneous things that come up when writing porn. What’s a good word for underwear? Is there one? I can’t just have everyone go commando all the time, that is limiting and unappealing. I kind of hate the word panties, underwear is fine on its own but seems somehow too neutral in a porno-writing context? Pants is alright actually, in my opinion, but the thing is — it only means underwear IN THE UK. Goddamnit. Additional grievances: describing kissing and the act of like, going in for a kiss … seems difficult. I feel like I’m recycling the same phases over and over. Also, choreographing where people physically are in a room or whatever … lkjsdflkjdsjlk. Okay this list is so far mostly just me saying ‘I have bad spatial intelligence’ isn’t it. Nice.
Musician stuff. This is one I enjoy (I think?) but have difficulty with, because I lack the experience/knowledge to write as naturally/convincingly as I’d like. Because I find myself asking things like ‘What physical things are actually on a stage when a band plays? What is a dressing room for actually? How do you allocate roles in a three-piece that does rock/pop stuff?’ and tons of other questions that reveal varyingly embarrassing levels of ignorance. Anyway, this one I actually don’t mind much because it’s relatively easy and fun to research, as it basically involves 1) chatting to musician friends who are willing to entertain my tons of Noob Questions, and 2) pursuing music myself (singing and guitar), which is highly fun on its own already even without the writing benefit. In fact, it was writing about a band that actually gave me the idea to get singing lessons in the first place. Clearly whenever I have a challenging but highly appealing aspiration, I should just write a story about it as motivation.
Storylines. Just … overall … developing a sufficiently satisfying storyline. It’s hard, man. I used to think I was shit at it, but actually I don’t think I’m shit at it, I think it just doesn’t come as naturally to me as other stuff, so once I realised ‘oh, I’m actually decent at this when I put in Effort,’ plotting stuff became a much better experience. It’s still difficult though and requires tons more from me than, say, vomiting limerence onto a page.
WORLDBUILDING. LOL FUCK I was sitting around going ‘are there other things I dislike/struggle with?’ and somehow just forgot about this (and the above point). But yeah. Worldbuilding. That’s partly why I’m writing an urban fantasy, because a good chunk of it is already done. But also I’m also very much writing an urban fantasy because I find it a lot more appealing to me (at the moment) than fantasy taking place in a world that isn’t ours. My feelings about worldbuilding are the same as my feelings about storyline, but with perhaps added difficulty.
Magic. I like magic. But oh man, I have the same struggles with it as with storyline and worldbuilding, and on top of that I find it a bit difficult to depict magic in cool and fun and satisfying ways … which likely (lol) is to do with how my magic system isn’t exactly robust or fleshed-out or developed much or anything. So I anticipate this will improve once I put more work into it, which is nice.
Incorporating a description of the first person narrator’s physical appearance. How do you do this in a relatively non-contrived way? Difficult. I absolutely fucking love first person narration, but this is one aspect that’s a bit more challenging than it wouuld be in third person, I reckon. There’s always mirrors and reflective surfaces and stuff, but that seems … a little … overdone. This is a pretty minor point. But 1) I wanted both lists to have the same number of items, and 2) the last three items on this list were all hilariously massive LOL so here. Ending on a small challenge.
And that’s it! Here we are at the end of this update. That was fun to write; I hope it was fun to read as well!
May you all have as wonderful a holiday season as possible, thank you as always for reading (it is so highly appreciated and makes me so very happy ahhh), and I’ll see you on the other side of my boy JC’s big day.
GOODBYE XO