Because I write the most random-ass nonsense from all those little pieces of bits and bobbles from here, there, and over and yon. And you can now view it all on there.
I'm still trying for publication, but I think I need to work on my separation a bit first. See, I'm still in the "New Writer's Shroud" as I call it. I've posted up my work for human consumption, advertised that I've done so in a few public forums, and pimped myself out to my friends, under the assumption that this is the best shit the world has ever seen or ever will see again.
This is a common flaw of all new writers. Well . . . not necessarily a flaw, but definitely a common trait. When we all first start out, we think that what we've written down is the best thing in the world and we hold it so near and dear to our hearts that it causes us physical and mental distress when somebody comes along and points out the flaws and mistakes in our word babies. We haven't yet learned to treat our works of fiction as separate entities from ourselves. I know that my writing isn't a piece of my soul, and I still have a wee bit of trouble accepting a lot of criticism about my writing.
I've come a long way, though, from when I wrote my first novel when I was fourteen. Back then, if somebody had pointed out something as small as a misplaced comma (let alone all of the bullshit characterization errors, continuity errors, and generally crappiness of the plotline) I would've burst into tears, cursed them with vitrol, and demanded that they take back their hateful, hurtful words all because they were jealous that I was so young and had already written more than they had in their entire lives.
Yeah . . . I wasn't a very smart fourteen year old.
Anyways, I've gotten better. I accept that most of the time, the people who are offering me criticism know what they're talking about. Sometimes they don't, but sometimes they do. And I've accepted that because I'm not some speshul leetle ritter grl, people won't offer me candy to go along with their critiques. Not everybody is sunshine and rainbows, especially not in the world of the Critic.
In that "New Writer's Shroud" though, there's more than just our assumption that our work is perfect and pure and untouchable by all because it's perfect and pure. There are the people who are critical just to be mean. The Critic is a person who will go out of their way to state what is wrong, why it is wrong, and why you're a moron for fucking up in so many epic ways. These people, while they may have valid points, are dicks. Mature writers know to look into the spooge of insults and find the points that they actually need to look at, those under the "New Writer's Shroud" will more often than not become discouraged and delete the piece / abandon the piece / break down and behave like a temper tantrum toddler for a good long while.
The Critic is a dick, but that doesn't mean The Critic should be ignored entirely. The way to beat The Critic is to give a polite "Thank you for your critiques and for the time you took to give them." Following that, The Critic's comment should be looked over carefully for any nuggets of wisdom that might be hidden behind the snark, dickiness, and/or bitchiness.
EG:
Are you fucking kidding me? Why the fuck would you have that many commas in a sentence? Are you some sort of moron? Is English even your first language? That first paragraph isn't even a paragraph! Are you fucking NEW?
That is an example that comes straight from my File O' Failures. I've got a rule to never throw anything pertaining to my writing away, and that includes the critiques I get from others. This gem was given to me one cold, blustery December evening after I'd gotten a short story assignment back from the classmate it had been handed to for critiques. (We'd all traded assignments so we could be impartial about what we were commenting on.) Needless to say the teacher was less than impressed with the comments, and there were dozens more along the same vein as the one above, but can YOU spot the helpful comments hidden amongst the mocking vulgarity?
He pointed out that I had a lot of commas. I took it back to my editing board after the guidance counselor calmed me down and got me to stop ripping up the printed copy of my story and, sure enough, I had used WAY too many commas. I've still got a problem with commas, oddly enough . . . you can probably see that.
He also pointed out that my first paragraph wasn't actually a paragraph. And sure enough, I looked at it, and it was just one massive run-on sentence.
Not all criticism is this harsh, but you always need to be able to answer politely and take into account what is said. The separation part of "New Writer's Shroud" is something I still have yet to master, so I'll only say this:
The first draft will always suck. That's what the editing board is for. Chop it up, hack it into little pieces, and only do it in front of people who care about you enough not to point and laugh as you're sobbing over words on a page, or an overly apathetic cat. The "New Writer's Shroud" doesn't last forever, so constantly try to remember that your work is not your physical body and that you won't die if somebody doesn't like it.
Man, this is gonna suck when I actually get a decent chunk of people READING those things . . . Oh well.
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Um, hey, did you notice the name change? No? Well, good. DNBDT was a better title for my story-posting blog, so I put it there and returned this one to my original title for it, Table In The Corner, because I'm kind of perpetually sitting at the table in the corner, no matter where I go or what I do.
Soyah . . . my pitiful attempt at a philosphical-like titles and . . . and stuff.
Peace.
