My Selfishness

You know, I get less and less conceted about my own writing everyday. I've been sort of sloppy lately and it's only been getting worse. I haven't had a lot of inspiration and I've had even less motivation. I'm in a dry spell and yet I don't stop writing because I somehow feel obligated to finish what I started. Some people even want me to write another Escaflowne book. I could probably do it, and I could probably think of a plot that wouldn't suck, but I can't imagine my readers actually following me through another 24 chapters. I think they'll get bored. Everyone got bored during Van's 14 chapter absense in 'Mystic Wings'. They just don't understand. If Hitomi is going to be heroic, then Van can't be around. But I was told that the parts where Hitomi went to The Voltage Room without him were boring.

Ah well, what do I know about writing? I know plenty. Actually, the more I read about the subject I'm startled by how much I already know. But simply by my personality - I know that whenever I think I know something - I am only scratching the surface. I'm the type who knows how to B.S. my way through anything. I always sound self assured and conceited. People love taking me down a notch. People love hearing three little words out of me and they're not 'I love you' - they're 'I was wrong'.

I've just finally learned something - NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR AN ACCURATE DESCRIPTION OF HOW THEY WRITE. They don't want to hear what they're weaknesses are.
I know what mine are. I suck at sentence construction. Isn't that weird? But it's true - it's a huge flaw. You know what else I suck at? I suck at allowing my characters time to interact when it doesn't have anything to do with the plot. You know what else? I suck at adding those little details that people love. You know what else? I suck at agonizing over my story. I hate leaning over already finished material and scrutinizing every damn word. I want to pick the perfect word for something, but I only have so much patience over it before I pick a serviceable one and go. And that's how it goes. When I hear people comment on any of these things - I've honestly given up being irritated and instead it's just like: "Yep. I know - I'm still sort of sucky. My bad!" But I can only have that kind of attitude when I haven't spent much time with the story. That's when I write it, go over it a couple times, send it to my beta reader, read it again and post it. Then I don't care what they say because I can hardly remember what happened, or what I said.

You know I was trying to be more grown up in 'Ghost Mist', and so there were longer paragraphs and people actually told me it was a flaw. Well, heck, then I'm never going to grow up. And if I never grow up, then I'm going to be living in Neverland until I'm OLD. And then I'll have lost my chance.

But in a way, I'm getting exactly what I want. I'm writing for my demographic and a lot of people have written in and told me how my story captivated them. I should be happy. I just wish that I didn't have to scam off someone else's idea to get an audience. BLAH!

I've got to stop now. I'm getting too depressed and I don't even think I have a reason to be depressed. Everything has been going swimmingly.