Tuesday 29 March 2016

My thirteenth writing-related blog post is dedicated to various miscellaneous writing-related things

For the first time since the start of the year I failed to make a blog post on Tuesday. I had a busy day and came home late and tired and could do nothing but have a late supper and then curl on my bed and watch TV, while the weather in all its unstable variability, as winter and spring battle for dominance, has been playing havoc with my head and my blood pressure so that I had to lie down and keep my head propped by a number of pillows so that the Earth didn’t move so fast. However, I’m going to write this blog post even if it’s going to be very short. I just need a little more time. Here are just a few writing-related things that I’ve been thinking about. 

A few weeks ago I was working on my Regency WIP, writing a scene that had been living in my mind for years – ever since I first got the idea for the novel. It was one of those scenes I’d been really looking forward to writing, because it was the scene where my main heroine and hero finally met. I greatly enjoyed writing it, building up on what I’d dreamed it would be like as well as on my previous draft. But it was only when I was reading the scene out loud to my critique partner that I realized just how great it made me feel – in a very real, very physical way, you know. I felt pure joy and it filled me up to the brim. I was laughing with them and reveling in their silly, flirty, frivolous and fun interaction. I honestly don’t remember ever feeling like that while writing before. 

On the other hand, having the first chapter of my fairy-tale critiqued by a bunch of strangers who had also taken part in the competition I wrote about before made me feel really low so much so that the next week after that was not productive at all. It’s not that I still believe in my genius or something like that. It’s just that creating this world and writing this chapter was lots of fun for me and I imagined that the others would find it so too. However, their reaction was rather startling for me, because they found it strange, negative and depressing and the majority said that they would not buy this book for their children. It was just the first chapter but they expected to find all the answers there and I felt like they wanted it to be a perfect world just because it was a fairy-tale for children. I’m used to critique and I believe I take it fairly well but I think that in this case they didn’t even bother to try and understand it at all. 

Another thing that has been nagging me was the downside of being a famous author like J.K. Rowling. I’m slightly obsessed with the idea of becoming a famous author myself but when I see how everything that she says and does is studied under the microscope and dissected and turned inside out and how often she is abused for no apparent reason online I get the feeling that it’s not really worth it. There’s been a recent post which suggested that she should stop using Twitter to express her opinions and views, answer her fans’ questions and talk about her characters, because the person who wrote that piece wanted her to leave the world of Harry Potter behind for good, because, apparently, that’s what she herself had done and so now she wants it to stay put in a cupboard of her childhood or something, complaining that J.K. Rowling is talking too much and that she should keep her mouth shut, because she spoils everything by speaking her mind, sharing  causes that she supports, expressing her concerns, sympathizing or encouraging some lucky fan who managed to catch her eye in the avalanche of tweets that she no doubt gets. But no, she should just shut up. Let that sink in while I’m taking a deep breath… 

I mean, seriously? SERIOUSLY?!! Everyone can use and abuse Twitter but not Jo? What’s up with that? Does she belong to a different species or something? It’s like anyone can tell her what they want and don’t want her to do and write just because she’s J.K. Rowling and they believe she owes them something. It galls me when someone starts telling that they know better what she should write about and whether she should continue with the world of Harry Potter or let other people contribute instead, because it’s not only her world any more. That last piece comes from another idiotically delusional online article, posted some time ago, whose author believes in fans’ entitlement to do whatever they want with the characters and the fictional world they belong to once it’s out there – well, that’s bollocks in my book, that’s what! I think J.K. Rowling can play with her world as long as she wants to, bringing joy to those of us who can truly appreciate it, because I know that I’m hardly the only one who wants more - but, you know, authored by the woman herself.

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