Why can't my self-esteem issues be fucking NORMAL
Saturday, 16 November 2019 14:20![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yvannairieDo you ever read something that just takes the joy out of the concept of writing for you entirely?
... that's hyperbolic but honestly, I don't really know how else to put into words the kind of crushing sense of pointlessness I get when I read the works of certain writers. Not just fic, either -- there's also folks writing essay-format and editorials that give me the same sense of "wow! Writing is worthless, actually" that makes me never want to put words into a text processor ever again. (Ironic, then, that I was honestly so desperate to write this that I planted myself on the first free table and bought shitty overpriced train station coffee just to be able to get some words to text processor about it.)
It's not a thing with the content or the quality of the writing, not exactly. The work that induced this feeling this time, I can absolutely see both the intellectual and artistic merit behind, it's been recommended to me multiple times and I've liked other works from the same author... but this one just makes me feel bad. I can't read more than a few hundred words before needing to put the thing down with an awful sense of ennui, and while I want to know what happens next, I don't know if I actually want to read that far.
So I can't just write it off as "oh, I just didn't like this work" because I do like it, reading it just makes me want to throw my laptop across the room. I'm straight-up just not having a good time reading it, and after wondering if it's because it's simply not speaking to me, if I'm just not the target audience, I keep coming back to "no -- it's good, and I like it".
Am I just jealous? Is my own low opinion of my own writing making me hate this good thing in comparison? I don't think so. Artistic jealousy is not a trait I recognise in myself, at least. (I also -- legitimately -- don't think I'm a bad writer. I don't even think I'm worse than THIS writer.) Or am I jealous because this thing, right here, is already readable by other people and my work isn't? It doesn't feel like it. It's not a story I'd want to write. The only part of the jealousy argument that makes sense to me is kind of a sympathetic loathing because it sucks disliking something that truly feels like it's written with the kind of attention to the writing I put into my works, and even that feels more like I'm disrespecting the effort.
Honestly it bothers me more that I can't place where the sense of "wow! bad!" is coming from because it gives me a disgusting feeling like I'm somehow going "wow this is so good it makes me want to shut up forever". Because this has to me some kind of a weird self-esteem negative vibe thing, or else I'm just missing some angle on why something that by all accounts is a great example on what you can do with writing is making me feel like "wow I never want to do this again."
"And not only do I want to never do it again, I don't think anyone else should, either."
What are we taking out on this story, self? What is our problem?
... that's hyperbolic but honestly, I don't really know how else to put into words the kind of crushing sense of pointlessness I get when I read the works of certain writers. Not just fic, either -- there's also folks writing essay-format and editorials that give me the same sense of "wow! Writing is worthless, actually" that makes me never want to put words into a text processor ever again. (Ironic, then, that I was honestly so desperate to write this that I planted myself on the first free table and bought shitty overpriced train station coffee just to be able to get some words to text processor about it.)
It's not a thing with the content or the quality of the writing, not exactly. The work that induced this feeling this time, I can absolutely see both the intellectual and artistic merit behind, it's been recommended to me multiple times and I've liked other works from the same author... but this one just makes me feel bad. I can't read more than a few hundred words before needing to put the thing down with an awful sense of ennui, and while I want to know what happens next, I don't know if I actually want to read that far.
So I can't just write it off as "oh, I just didn't like this work" because I do like it, reading it just makes me want to throw my laptop across the room. I'm straight-up just not having a good time reading it, and after wondering if it's because it's simply not speaking to me, if I'm just not the target audience, I keep coming back to "no -- it's good, and I like it".
Am I just jealous? Is my own low opinion of my own writing making me hate this good thing in comparison? I don't think so. Artistic jealousy is not a trait I recognise in myself, at least. (I also -- legitimately -- don't think I'm a bad writer. I don't even think I'm worse than THIS writer.) Or am I jealous because this thing, right here, is already readable by other people and my work isn't? It doesn't feel like it. It's not a story I'd want to write. The only part of the jealousy argument that makes sense to me is kind of a sympathetic loathing because it sucks disliking something that truly feels like it's written with the kind of attention to the writing I put into my works, and even that feels more like I'm disrespecting the effort.
Honestly it bothers me more that I can't place where the sense of "wow! bad!" is coming from because it gives me a disgusting feeling like I'm somehow going "wow this is so good it makes me want to shut up forever". Because this has to me some kind of a weird self-esteem negative vibe thing, or else I'm just missing some angle on why something that by all accounts is a great example on what you can do with writing is making me feel like "wow I never want to do this again."
"And not only do I want to never do it again, I don't think anyone else should, either."
What are we taking out on this story, self? What is our problem?
