A Writer's Disdain for Previous Works · 12:05am Mar 18th, 2021
I've never been able to get a consistent stance on what I feel for my work as, every time I go back to visit the piece, although it has not changed, I certainly have. Going back over your old work isn't like going back to an old game, movie, or another medium that's outside of yourself.
Once you get older and, hopefully, a lot more knowledge and more intelligence in regards to things, you'll see movies and games a touch differently. Maybe you'll finally get that adult joke that flew over your head. Or maybe you can start to sense a structure that most movies of those types seemed to take.
Because one has amassed more experience and knowledge, those movies change a little to the viewer. But one can still enjoy those things in spite of it. That they don't come to disregard a piece because of a few flaws that have become known to them.
But this changes, however, when a writer or artist goes back to revisit a piece they made.
The problem with going back to a piece of work that you made is the experience was a lot more than merely experiencing something. Being a creator means you must create and, to do so, use a variety of tools.
These tools at the start are dull and misused. Set on the wrong jobs or improperly used. We can think and plan to the best but—the best of our planning is still limited by our knowledge and skill. Reading about a skill or a trade still only gives you theoretical knowledge, which is not to be knocked, for it still creates a path to follow.
But theoretical knowledge transcended into applied experience is usually the goal of the thing.
It's hard to come to any project or path with the expectation to fail but, once more, it's the perspective one takes that causes such a thing to be hard in the first place. Expect to do a job perfectly and without fail, because you are a fine and competent person, and you will struggle on every footing of the path.
Expect yourself to do perfect, and you will find yourself delaying the task for as long as possible to not suffer that breach in your identity. However. Go as someone who expects to fail and to learn, that you will do the best that you can, and suddenly, the lessons seem to whip less at the skin.
It's only through the use of those tools, and the practice of where and how they apply, that one sharpens them through use, and learns how to use them well. It should be noted that, in all writing, there are running similarities.
In romance and horror, although some of the same tools are used, they are then used differently, to acquire the desired effect of the medium. But now I've strayed a bit away from the point of this little blog of mine.
I'd recently gone back to reading a work of mine as a writer because, hopefully, you are writing the kind of stories you'd like to go back and read. This was the case of me with this particular work. I'd read it several times before to some enjoyment. I even regarded it as a decent to a good story.
But I went back to it and, be it depression or being objective, I couldn't help but notice the work was... well, shit. The prose and the writing and the like weren't terrible. I couldn't say it was terrible. It was something worse than that.
It was a meh story.
And meh stories are a writer's worse fear.
My first notice was the prose and how it failed to flow. Second was the worry that, in wanting to be experimental, I decided to forgo necessary commas because the lines in my head contained no pauses. Next were the characters that, while not dreadful, seemed to have wooden jaws that moved as they spoke.
With limbs moved by strings.
And the dialogue was awful. The story was a romance between two characters and, as I was reading the protagonist speak, the only thought in my mind was who the fuck would find this guy interesting? Bit quirky with uplifting moments. But spoke his feelings like out from a fucking manual.
And the plot around him, because of that, felt less legitimate.
So I ended up bailing out of the book halfway through and going through the silent dread that one wishes everyone else goes through and, at the same time, doesn't go through. This shit is terrible. How could you have ever thought this was decent? You talk a high game, and yet, your writing is fucking crap.
And thus goes the stream.
Ever notice the lack of sophisticated comments on your stories? It's because it doesn't attract them. Sure. Maybe the myth is that, try and improve enough, and finally, maybe, you can become good. But you've been at this for how many years, after how much effort, books read and stories written, for the end result to be like this?
And so it goes.
Face it. You can't improve to the degree that you see in your mind. Your time is over, and you've already faded into the past. You have your chance, and it's done. There's nothing more left for you here. Give it up and go on over to something else. Or nothing at all.
I assure you that voice is a lot less cliched than the voice of a snooty teenager in a high school flick. But a lot of that shit comes out during the harder times in one's life. We can all hold to the idea that, with enough effort, experimentation, and proper learning, that we can eventually become someone close to the person we'd like to become.
But what if one is limited in their application? The pianist whose ear is true but their fingers are foul. Where your best effort forgoes recognition, and you soon learn the reason as to why. The truth of the matter is that there is nothing I can provide in answer to those regards.
It's often best to work on one's passion on the side, seeking all the help for it that they can that, with the hope, one day, it will be enough to sustain them in all the ways possible. But we have to be thankful in the few ways it does.
Even if it sometimes feels as though few become none.
One solace I can offer to the writer returns to their previous works to find themselves upset with the product. And that you should be proud of finally seeing the grime. You can see what is wrong with the piece, the things you personally dislike, and are given the task to improve upon them.
It is the writer, and not the reader, that should be able to see everything terrible within the piece: to know what lurks in the dark corners of the page because only you can do better on it. Your tools have only since improved since that work, or maybe the distance from the piece now allows you to see it better but, whatever the case, you can now see your flaws crystal clear.
Most of the time, until more experience is gained, we don't know what's wrong with a thing until it's done.
So when I went to go and read that story again, although the initial feeling was shit, the other, however, was the improver at play. Seeing why things weren't working. How, if the main character acted that way, it caused the rest of the plot, regardless of its contents, to falter.
I learned why this character was unlikable. It was the way he spoke and acted and interacted with others. If I go back to write such a character again—which I have done, recently—while I might not be able to do it better, at the very least, I can do it differently.
Writing is a great game of expression and the experimentation of that. One does not learn how to write books well but, after writing one particular book, learning how to write that type of book better.
Some things pass over. Romance to adventure will have common strings and, viewing one genre from the lens of another as a way to further expand its capabilities. But don't expect to write SCI-FI well and then do the same with a mystery.
Going back to our works is harder than going back to the works of others, for we have personally evolved beyond the skills that originally crafted that piece. We take the badness more to heart because it's a direct reflection of ourselves.
We're a lot more generous to someone's work that hasn't aged well than we are to our own. It's worth thinking that we first had to create that piece to get to where we are now. That we should be grateful for being able to see the flaws so clearly, and understand them so, despite how it exactly justifies our feelings of terribleness, for it, in itself, in the past and path to do better.
You should treat your older works like younger versions of yourself. Someone that was doing their best at the time and that work is what they have to show for it. Even though—once more, hopefully—bigger and better now, those aren't things to use to demean your younger self.
You should be kind to them, even if the hardest person to be kind to ourselves, and continue to do as you should. Which is write, draw, film, and create. I don't think there's much inherent worth in beating yourself over mistakes in such fields.
Treat your older works like younger versions of yourself.
What's up, gang? Everyone enjoying their fed Wednesday? I'm still in the hole regarding a lot of things but, since there's not much use in worries beyond to shoot or write from them, I've been doing my best to focus on that which I can.
Still unable to shake this terrible sense of loneliness as of late. It still feels as though I'm shouting into the void or having my words blurred by the haze of absurdity. I only feel like half of myself in public. And, in a way, I don't feel as I've become understood by anyone.
I know that feeling or person or something is out there. One has to keep going, the best they can, to strike a chance at acquiring that. But one can work without a hint of reward for so long before the questions come raining.
I've been going hard on VR Chat with Duke and a couple of newly made friends. Harmonic proves to be the craziest person not on drugs that I've met. In truth, I feel some guilt toward him. I've been fucked over and betrayed by a lot of people I'd once considered to be good friends.
In a way to defend myself, at the times he disappeared from the group and shit, I would find a way to kick and unfriend him and whatever the fuck. When betrayals become frequent, one expects them from everyone and, not wanting to experience such a thing again, strive to make the first move.
Even though Harmonic is a better person than me in every regard, and although I treated him like shit without a reason to strive to ever want to come back, the broski still had my back, and kept in touch. I was prepared to let him go, and my actions are backed behind that. Out of the people I treated kinder with the hope to stay, who then went on to do as they did, I did no such thing for Harmonic.
And yet the motherfucker stuck by for whatever dumbass reason.
I'm sure there's a moral in that, somewhere.
I often think of that fact and that, even though the seas are harsh, there are some fair sailing boats adrift across it. I appreciate the new friends I've made—even if most of the connections, because they are new or other reasons, on the surface.
But there are some broskis where one does not need to act like someone or worry about doing certain things to keep them around. One needs to get used to being alone regardless of the quantity and quality of their friends. Just in case there is ever a time where one needs to emerge themselves into solace.
This blog could have probably been written better, but that is the vague notion of my state of mind. I hope the rest of you have been doing well or on the path to doing better. Keep well and keep in touch. We're all doomed to either go forward or be still forever.
Later gang.
~ Yr. Pal, B ~
*Nods* A man cannot cross the same river twice; it's not the same river and he's not the same man.
5477683
Truth
Every time I look back on what I've done wrong, no matter what it is or if it is even from yesterday or today, I feel some amount of shame. It's because I want so desperately to have done better, but with most things, I find myself unable to fix it. I make jokes. Sometimes these hit harder than I think they will, or I will say something wrong, or go too far... I apologize on the spot when I notice it, but sometimes, it just gets shuffled along before actually being noted, or I don't come off as genuine in it. This hurts me quite a bit. I like making jokes, but occasionally I harm people with them accidentally and never get to make it up. I accidentally ran into somebody in the past, who then fell over. I made sure to minimize the impact made in all ways possible. The parents of the kid were quick to tear into me before I could do anything other than say sorry, and by the end of their rant, I had both forgotten and not managed to ask if the kid was okay. They got up and recovered, no real harm to them done, and tried to interrupt their parents saying they were fine. In the end, without another word other than another short apology, I left. I have accidentally done something like this, accidentally hurting somebody without being able to prove myself sorry to them, that it just rips into me if I am not able to somehow resolve it in a way that gives me fulfilling closure. Sadly, life moves on. I hate what I have done on accident, and some of what I have done intentionally. At least I am growing, that's the thing. Hopefully I can eventually look back on myself and those events that likely barely mattered at all, and just think, "Yeah. That didn't matter much at all. It wasn't good, but it really wasn't that bad either" and move on.
I dislike leaving anything of myself behind. Yet somehow, my friends and family seem to be fond of the good memories and to not really care as much for the bad ones. I'm making everything out to be worse than it is in my head, I know it, but I can't escape it. It isn't rational. I like to think that I'm better than I thought I was. I know that you are. Don't put yourself down.
Also sorry for laying this onto you, I've just never really said this to anyone and needed someone to confide in. Hope you're doing well, B.
5477901
I feel you homie.
Well hope you're doing ok today at least and remember you have people to talk to
5478517
Half Life Alyx.
I can't give you the direct source as I just googled the images and they were the first to crop up.
Out of curiosity—how did you find this blog?
If your best works are behind you, you're doing it wrong.