just pretend it makes sense to make me happy

I know there is a point when a relationship is unhealthy, and a point when a job is unhealthy, but I had no idea there could be a waterloo in which one's relationship with one's job is unhealthy. Because you know what, I love the job, and that's hard to admit, because I hate going to work and those two things do not go together. And yet, my life. *hands* I have an unhealthy relationship with my job.

In other news:

Things I have discovered; I cannot write after reading linzeestyle at all.

I'm extremely impressionable as a writer; my adventures in Due South were sharp reminder that no, you never really stop picking up things from other people, and I absorb like you would not believe and it takes time to write back into myself again. That's pretty much the only time I have to do hard line rewrites. It's not a better or worse thing--though yeah, she's better than I am, not bitter or anything, not the point--but the rhythm gets in my head and I don't think like that. So there's this really bad translation thing going on, which is problematic, because I'm working through her back catalogue and when I stop to write, horrifying things come out that are like some weird Frankenstein of ficness, and it's all very messy and sometimes obscure, and occasionally I can't even see myself on the page, which I will say now, freaks me out.

Okay, she's not the only one, she's just the one that's causing me cognitive issues atm. Other writers on this list are samdonne and cesperanza, and it's not like, even an issue of I don't like them--they're among my Top Ten Writers I Read Fandoms I Cannot Even Identify Who the Hell Those People Are (fucking Fallout Boy fic, just, I don't even know what the hell is up with that; manips helped, thanks!). It's just hard to write around them when I'm bopping along and then come out on the other side with an existential headache and a sense of violated fic identity.

It's not quite a style thing, I think--again, reference point, my freakout during heavy Due South reading, or only a style thing, or a tone thing, or even a subject thing. It's a combination of things I would not write combined with things I would, but in a direction I wouldn't have thought to go. It's unsettling. I write better when I'm reading, because I'm a fangirl and I work synergetically--I write better when someone will sit still online long enough for me to paste to them--I write better when I'm, you know, writing--I do not write well when I have to stop, go back, and think this is not my story.

Okay, see, when work is stressing me, I hyperexamine my process. It is not healthy, but I have four fics right now that are five pages, maybe, off being done, and every one of them is coming up against the same roadblock. Also, I think jamesinboots and shinetheway are getting tired of being the blunting force of my internal writing crisis and reading fic I refuse to finish or keep rewriting because it feels wrong and I can't explain why.

*lies down* My problems are seriously reaching a no-fly zone of being untenably weird. I need a universal type problem that is relatable. Like, I don't know, drugs. God, if only I had time for drugs. Does caffeine count?

(I also really want to abandon capital letters like you have no idea. Yeah, I know exactly where the blame for that belongs.)

Comments

[winterlive.livejournal.com]

violated fic identity.

HAH. OH, GIRL. <3

[alizarin-nyc.livejournal.com]

I identified with a couple of things here - one, that I am a better writer when I'm reading, and two, that I absorb other people's styles a little too much and I hate that. My standard cure for this is to read classic literature because if I'm aping say, Thomas Mann or James Baldwin, then, okay, that can work itself out and maybe I'll learn something along the way.

[alwaysaddled.livejournal.com]

That is very interesting! I would never have pegged linzee as an influence on your AI voice. Her FOB stories, maybe, which are pricklier to me than her AI ones. I probably would have guessed astolat, but that's probably because of the "powered by whimsy" factor more than sentence structure.

For the record, I don't think anyone escapes DS without being influenced by ces. :)

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Linzee is yeah, she hit my voice hard, and I read the FOB before AI, so it comes out for me. The more consistent is astolat, but that's normal when I'm around her in any fandom, and I was readign her back in 2001/2002 when I started this style, so that one, definitely.

It's--uneasymaking. Not bad, per se, but really frustrating because I usually write until I find my voice, but linzee is not compatible with how I write, so it's just a mess.

[transtempts.livejournal.com]

*pats your shoulder*

[niqaeli (from livejournal.com)]

I am so tempted to write bizarre anthropromorfic/RPF with disturbing fangirl-BDSM involving you and your job, you would not believe.

I'm just going to blame that urge on the new job. *stares at self in blank horror*

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I'ts not like it's not true. I just don't have a reliable safeword.

[niqaeli (from livejournal.com)]

Which would make it horrible fangirl-BDSM. Fanfic?

Some day, if you like scarring yourself, you should read NCIS fic. I mean, also, watch the show which is actually good. And then read the fic. It's -- I still carry trauma from reading fic in that fandom? So yeah. *g*

[lurkerlynne.livejournal.com]

The worst scarring I ever got from fic was a Scooby Doo story; one story, singular, that was disturbing in ways I cannot fully express because that would require remembering. And I put waaaay too much effort into forgetting.

Still makes me twitch just thinking about the cartoon. o_O O_o o_O

It has, however, left me pretty much bullet-proof. Bring on the Seperis/Job BDSM squick fic!

[slvrbld747.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I sometimes have this problem. I can usually mimic a style at least a little, and characters can flow but it causes problems too. The solution for me is rereading a really old piece that I've done, and is firmly in my style. After that is making the leap back into the piece I'm working on, and not starting another sequel that I haven't finished, sighs.

Of course, reading some of my favorites professional authors is also soothing, and generally I would pleased as punch to sound like them. Lois McMaster Bulold, Robert Jordan, and I have a horrible tendency to sound like David Eddings if I'm not careful, grins. I hope you have better luck. -SB

[linzeestyle.livejournal.com]

Ahhhhhhh! This is so funny to me, because I am pretty sure if I were to pin down a fandom or fic reading experience or story atmosphere that most impacted how I started to write I would have pointed to "Sleep While I Drive" and your Lex Luthor.

I empathize, though. When I get to the point where I am seriously Going To Write, No Really, I have to stop reading other people's fic entirely. Otherwise I get my own words and voice mixed up with what I've been reading. And it drives me nuts, because I write to the sound: if a sentence doesn't have a certain cadence to it I cannot leave it, even if it says what I need it to say. It starts to feel foreign rather than a part of my story, and I mean, I can mime, but as Garfield has taught me -- nobody likes mimes.

In conclusion: I am a fic cock block! /o\

[seperis.livejournal.com]

And it drives me nuts, because I write to the sound: if a sentence doesn't have a certain cadence to it I cannot leave it, even if it says what I need it to say.

Bingo. It's pretty much exactly that. And I can tell while I'm writing when it goes off rhythm, and it doesn't matter if the concept is down, the expression has to feel right or I have to fix it now or it just stops.

In conclusion: I am a fic cock block! /o\

I'd have been fine if I hadn't hit the FOB. I have no idea what about those did it, but man. Loved the fic, but I have to forget it exists or I can't do anything but vaguely long for long, pensive drug-rehab fic set to Amy Winehouse and I don't even like her music. And all my sentences were in the wrong time signature. Which is the actual part that kept throwing me off.

While everyone I show it to looks at me crazy while I rewrite the same two sentences three times and keep asking if that's okay. Urgh.

[jamesinboots.livejournal.com]

Also, I think [info]jamesinboots and [info]shinetheway are getting tired of being the blunting force of my internal writing crisis and reading fic I refuse to finish or keep rewriting because it feels wrong and I can't explain why.

NOT AT ALL TIRED OF IT, JUST FYI. <3333333333333

[naughtyoldlady.livejournal.com]

OK, how the heck do you love your job but hate going to work???

[druidspell.livejournal.com]

It's surprisingly easy to love your job and hate going to work, actually. Or you love going to work but hate your job; I've done both in 2009. You love going to work and seeing and interacting with coworkers and customers, but you get absolutely no satisfaction out of what you're doing (love work, hate job), or you get satisfaction from what you're doing, but you cannot stand the people you're doing it with/for (love job, hate work). (In my experience; YMMV. And Jenn's mileage may vary, but that's how it worked with me)

[eponymousanon.livejournal.com]

I remember doing this, back in high school English. My Hamlet paper looked like it was written by a different person than my Grapes of Wrath, and the only reason my college LotR paper (Industrialism! Smaug is smog!) escaped the same fate is because we only actually read the Hobbit (my prof actually gave us the movies as optional material, lol). It's probably a good thing I gave up writing before I started lurking around fandom, or god knows how fractured my writing style would be (more badfic, in six different badly written ways!).

[lurkerlynne.livejournal.com]

I've got a different problem; I don't pick up writing styles, just ideas. I do try to give acknowledgment but don't always noticed I've been influenced until someone comments. :/