L.J. Lee (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ljwrites) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
write_away2014-04-17 11:01 am
ljwrites) wrote in write_away2014-04-17 11:01 am
Being a Writer
Do you find that having a writer's temperament or talent affects your life in other areas, for better or for worse? Here are the ways it's affected me:
- My only real economic value is as a writer. In my day job I keep falling into translation work. It's something I couldn't do if I weren't bilingual, of course, but that's just the bare minimum requirement. I make money with translation because constructing phrases and getting ideas across clearly is what I'm good at, really all I've ever been good at.
- Even when I'm not writing things down I keep exercising the same muscles. I teach subjects that have nothing to do with writing, but my most effective teaching comes from my creative sensibilities, not whatever knowledge I might have. I synthesize, adjust, and add nuance; I use Jon Stewart and V for Vendetta to teach international law concepts because I see the connections, the same way I do when I write.
- I use words as a weapon and a shield, sometimes in terrible wounding ways. I have inadvertently hurt relationships and feelings because of this, usually because I was right in but hurtful ways. It's something I'm working on, because having insight and the words to express it is no excuse to harm people.
- I love words despite their destructive potential (or maybe because of it). I pore over them and chew them over in my mouth. When someone is struggling with a word to use I'm almost always the person to supply them, and they're almost always the right words. This also means I am an inveterate interrupter, something else I am trying to change.
- In the end, I have never had any other ambitions. Looking back, I rather naively got a law degree because I was told I could get the financial security and time to be a writer that way. The results were mixed. I was largely a zombie through higher education--the only times I showed the professional hustle and passion my parents so wanted for me was when I was working on writing projects.
- Even while trying hard not to be a writer, I was writing anyway. I wrote on the backs of used paper, in notebooks that my mother would throw away, on a computer once I learned to use one. I wrote fanfic when I got an internet connection. As I moved up the education ladder and became increasingly confused about where I was going, the times when I wrote were some of the few hours of my day that felt real.
It's not always easy to like this part of myself. I still have a suspicion of artistic types as shifty and untrustworthy, no doubt through the lens of parental disapproval. Surrendering to this strange possession was like relaxing for the first time in my life. I still do my day job, and try to be productive in my stunted way, but I'm better aware of how this writing disease stretches its tentacles into every corner of my life. I've also come to acknowledge that the pages of my own creation are where I truly live, whether I like it or not.
- My only real economic value is as a writer. In my day job I keep falling into translation work. It's something I couldn't do if I weren't bilingual, of course, but that's just the bare minimum requirement. I make money with translation because constructing phrases and getting ideas across clearly is what I'm good at, really all I've ever been good at.
- Even when I'm not writing things down I keep exercising the same muscles. I teach subjects that have nothing to do with writing, but my most effective teaching comes from my creative sensibilities, not whatever knowledge I might have. I synthesize, adjust, and add nuance; I use Jon Stewart and V for Vendetta to teach international law concepts because I see the connections, the same way I do when I write.
- I use words as a weapon and a shield, sometimes in terrible wounding ways. I have inadvertently hurt relationships and feelings because of this, usually because I was right in but hurtful ways. It's something I'm working on, because having insight and the words to express it is no excuse to harm people.
- I love words despite their destructive potential (or maybe because of it). I pore over them and chew them over in my mouth. When someone is struggling with a word to use I'm almost always the person to supply them, and they're almost always the right words. This also means I am an inveterate interrupter, something else I am trying to change.
- In the end, I have never had any other ambitions. Looking back, I rather naively got a law degree because I was told I could get the financial security and time to be a writer that way. The results were mixed. I was largely a zombie through higher education--the only times I showed the professional hustle and passion my parents so wanted for me was when I was working on writing projects.
- Even while trying hard not to be a writer, I was writing anyway. I wrote on the backs of used paper, in notebooks that my mother would throw away, on a computer once I learned to use one. I wrote fanfic when I got an internet connection. As I moved up the education ladder and became increasingly confused about where I was going, the times when I wrote were some of the few hours of my day that felt real.
It's not always easy to like this part of myself. I still have a suspicion of artistic types as shifty and untrustworthy, no doubt through the lens of parental disapproval. Surrendering to this strange possession was like relaxing for the first time in my life. I still do my day job, and try to be productive in my stunted way, but I'm better aware of how this writing disease stretches its tentacles into every corner of my life. I've also come to acknowledge that the pages of my own creation are where I truly live, whether I like it or not.
no subject
As for the temperament? Hmm. Stories and writing are how I deal with my own brain. My brain is only barely under my own control at the best of times, and it's much easier for me to sort out my thoughts when I have some way of...taking them out of my head. By talking (I think out loud a lot, which probably confuses my roommates) or by writing. It helps. Keeps them in order, helps me trace the thoughts and remember why things matter. Makes them...real.
Besides, sometimes the inside of my head is /exhausting/. So it's easier and safer in someone else's life, where things turn out for the better in the end and struggles are worthwhile - and most importantly, it's all a step removed, where it's safe and I can deal with it.
...besides, my fingers itch when I don't write, and my dreams start developing plotlines.
no subject
I've noticed this about artists, too. Left brain/right brain discrepancy, maybe? I'm the other way around--a stickler for writing and expression but can't draw to save my life, have trouble visualizing spaces, lose my direction all the time. I'm looking for ways to develop my right brain because my development is so lopsided (or left-sided, in my case).
it's much easier for me to sort out my thoughts when I have some way of...taking them out of my head.
Me, too! I would get so seized up with a story and the only thing that helps is to write it down, or rather write it out of my head so I can free up space for other things.
...besides, my fingers itch when I don't write
This, so much.
no subject
I feel similarly, though I tend to view myself as using stories to deal with the world as a whole. The way I'm constantly visualizing scenes in my head started to make sense to me when I conceptualized it as my coping mechanism when the rest of the world is either too much to handle or not enough to satisfy. It can either create distance or add depth and meaning, and often does both. I haven't always written consistently, but I don't have any memory of the inside of my head without other people moving around in it.
no subject
It's always a very surreal experience, like my hearing has been turned off. But it is, thankfully, temporary.