Why to write
Mar. 25th, 2007 06:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI've started re-reading the Vorkosigan books. So far I've read Cordelia's Honour, The Warrior's Apprentice, and the first story in Borders of Infinity.
I've also been watching DS9, with all those stories about Jake deciding to be a writer. That kind of story rarely works for me, writers writing about how important it is to be a writer, it's a bit tail eating. Yet I can look back at a bunch of stories and pick out specific ways they helped make my life. And I can look at characters like Sarah Jane or Lois Lane (hey, rhyme!) and how cool it is they have adventures and write about them and that seems important too.
I've also been thinking about what to do with my life. Because often it feels like I haven't done *anything*. Except there were a bunch of years in there, and actually quite a long accumulation of education, and I'd never look at someone else doing all this and say they hadn't done anything so that's just the little voice at the back of my head again, the one that sounds like Dad when he looked at my GCSE results ("You got a B?")
ANYways
There's keywords. Duty, Honour, Service. And while it is immediately obvious how a military career can fulfill those, and with a bit of thought obvious how an assortment of religious callings fit, the whole thing I'm doing right now with studying Lit and not-actually-writing is... not so very clear.
There's a bit in Borders of Infinity where Miles quotes his mother saying God tells you what he wants from you by the talents he gives you.
Which is a fairly long chain to quote an authority I don't quite put in a deciding position anyway. I mean, it's quite possible god exists and all, but who says he gets to be the boss of me? No fate but what you make!
... It's possible I have Issues ...
But what does make sense is: If you're really good at one thing, and not very good at another, then trying very hard at a thing you're not very good at might possibly mean you can make an average contribution in that field. But trying just as hard in an area you're good at will let you make an *excellent* contribution. Therefore it makes sense to do what you're good at.
Trouble is there's slight modifications for need. I mean, if there's no need for the thing you're very good at, and a lot for the things you're average-at-best at, then maybe it makes sense to be average. Even if you have to work harder. Possibly even if you have to be miserable. Seems to depend on the size of the need, really.
So: I like writing. I don't suck at writing. I'm not sure I'm any good at it but my doubts come because nobody tells me how to get any better and I keep getting roughly the same marks. I do see a flaw in my logic, there.
I don't seem to be very good at things that are not writing. In fact in many areas of practical endeavour, I suck. Real bad. And can't get even average amounts of stuff done without help. Which mostly I'm zen about, but... I guess, from my experience, those things therefore seem like the areas that have a need. You know? Like, my life has ample writing, but insufficient cleaning, therefore getting better at cleaning seems necessary. Even though I could put the effort into writing and let someone else do the cleaning.
... Does my life have ample writing? Well...
What is the need for stories?
Stories are where people figure out how to be people. Not where people *are* people, that's everyday life, interacting, all that stuff. But the... test cases, recipes, arguments, skeletons, blueprints.
And quite a lot of people, for assorted reasons, have a story that they can point to and say they'd never thought of a thing until they read that.
It can be simple things. Like in the story I just read Miles says about college that knowledge is something you're meant to have going out, not going in. And that's a really *helpful* sort of a thought, at least until the end of the semester. I think meeting so many other mature students has reshaped how I feel about my own progress through life. I mean, it's not like it's being timed, or like I'll get older any faster for studying or not studying or anything. So all these people start a course having not been in education for long and long, and they come out with a qualification, and there's a whole lot of process in between.
And there's not a whole lot of stories about that yet. Or if there are they're in places I haven't seen. There's a heck of a lot of high school stories, but I don't know any series set in a class of mature students. And that would actually be a nifty-cool setting, because it brings together the widest variety of people all going through all kinds of life stuff as well as classes.
And I'm pretty sure there's a lot of people who haven't thought to try it yet. Maybe people who could look at a story and think "woah! sounds like me! also, cool!" and then go study and have a whole different life because they got that idea at that time.
So that's what stories do.
And on another level... there's people who get to be in hero stories, and romance, and all across every channel all the time. And then there's the *other* people. And the weird freaky thing is, even when they call the 'other' people minorities, I'm pretty sure they add up to most people. I mean rich white pretty healthy men cannot in fact make up the majority of humans on this planet. So where are the hero stories about the rest of us? And the lack isn't just a neutral thing. It shapes expectations. It shapes what people believe about whole groups of people, or about history, or about what is possible. It really winds me up sometimes seeing things called 'unrealistic', because sometimes they just mean that someone who looks that way or has that disability or loves that kind of person couldn't possibly be the hero, or *weren't* the hero in that bit of history, and usually that's absolute bollocks.
I'm wrapping that in so many generalities it pretty much stops making sense.
What I mean...
Okay, reading through the lit textbook I developed a grand unifying theory of Isms. Which is: People can be divided up into different groups, and some of those groups have more power than others. This effects representation in a lot of different ways. Usually the less powerful get marginalised and misrepresented, and quite often they are 'they' and represented by other rather than being 'we' with a voice. And the more you notice that, the more annoying it gets.
Everybody gets a voice. Everyone has a story. Sometimes many stories. Everyone should get to be in all the stories. Because we're all people, and stories are figuring out how to be people.
And that's *important*.
So, there is a need for stories, and there is a need for stories written by someone like me.
Duty is the feeling you get when wisdom and compassion work together, when you care about something and know what to do about it.
In writing I guess that would be when you care about something and know the story that would show it, and maybe show possibilities to change it, or maybe just show the fixed version.
Honour is getting the job done no matter the personal cost.
... so, putting actual words on paper would be handy then ...
Service is knowing that you're outnumber nearly six billion to one, and doing stuff for them is all kinds of helpful.
Reckon writing stories is in fact a service, because then people read them, and sometimes find them useful and valuable.
Studying how to write makes the writing better. It also helps unearth the isms and change the focus and discuss what it all brings up and just generally bat around the ideas in a different way. Analytical. Symbol for that is a sword, blade that cuts things apart to see inside.
So it kind of loops back to the military thing right there.
Blade and wand? Sword and pen. Analytical and intuitional?
Storytelling and then thinking about the stories, and then storytelling again.
Of course somewhere in there it helps if you do some living, especially if you want to have stuff to write about, but I figure I can have a go at that as well.
Basically: Useful and valuable = stories, as well as a bunch of other things.
If I can write stories that is useful and valuable.
And figuring out how and why they are useful and valuable is pretty nifty too.
... on around four in the morning these things do not seem so very obvious to me. So I write them down with Logic. Maybe later I can write them down with Feeling and make a story of it too.
I've also been watching DS9, with all those stories about Jake deciding to be a writer. That kind of story rarely works for me, writers writing about how important it is to be a writer, it's a bit tail eating. Yet I can look back at a bunch of stories and pick out specific ways they helped make my life. And I can look at characters like Sarah Jane or Lois Lane (hey, rhyme!) and how cool it is they have adventures and write about them and that seems important too.
I've also been thinking about what to do with my life. Because often it feels like I haven't done *anything*. Except there were a bunch of years in there, and actually quite a long accumulation of education, and I'd never look at someone else doing all this and say they hadn't done anything so that's just the little voice at the back of my head again, the one that sounds like Dad when he looked at my GCSE results ("You got a B?")
ANYways
There's keywords. Duty, Honour, Service. And while it is immediately obvious how a military career can fulfill those, and with a bit of thought obvious how an assortment of religious callings fit, the whole thing I'm doing right now with studying Lit and not-actually-writing is... not so very clear.
There's a bit in Borders of Infinity where Miles quotes his mother saying God tells you what he wants from you by the talents he gives you.
Which is a fairly long chain to quote an authority I don't quite put in a deciding position anyway. I mean, it's quite possible god exists and all, but who says he gets to be the boss of me? No fate but what you make!
... It's possible I have Issues ...
But what does make sense is: If you're really good at one thing, and not very good at another, then trying very hard at a thing you're not very good at might possibly mean you can make an average contribution in that field. But trying just as hard in an area you're good at will let you make an *excellent* contribution. Therefore it makes sense to do what you're good at.
Trouble is there's slight modifications for need. I mean, if there's no need for the thing you're very good at, and a lot for the things you're average-at-best at, then maybe it makes sense to be average. Even if you have to work harder. Possibly even if you have to be miserable. Seems to depend on the size of the need, really.
So: I like writing. I don't suck at writing. I'm not sure I'm any good at it but my doubts come because nobody tells me how to get any better and I keep getting roughly the same marks. I do see a flaw in my logic, there.
I don't seem to be very good at things that are not writing. In fact in many areas of practical endeavour, I suck. Real bad. And can't get even average amounts of stuff done without help. Which mostly I'm zen about, but... I guess, from my experience, those things therefore seem like the areas that have a need. You know? Like, my life has ample writing, but insufficient cleaning, therefore getting better at cleaning seems necessary. Even though I could put the effort into writing and let someone else do the cleaning.
... Does my life have ample writing? Well...
What is the need for stories?
Stories are where people figure out how to be people. Not where people *are* people, that's everyday life, interacting, all that stuff. But the... test cases, recipes, arguments, skeletons, blueprints.
And quite a lot of people, for assorted reasons, have a story that they can point to and say they'd never thought of a thing until they read that.
It can be simple things. Like in the story I just read Miles says about college that knowledge is something you're meant to have going out, not going in. And that's a really *helpful* sort of a thought, at least until the end of the semester. I think meeting so many other mature students has reshaped how I feel about my own progress through life. I mean, it's not like it's being timed, or like I'll get older any faster for studying or not studying or anything. So all these people start a course having not been in education for long and long, and they come out with a qualification, and there's a whole lot of process in between.
And there's not a whole lot of stories about that yet. Or if there are they're in places I haven't seen. There's a heck of a lot of high school stories, but I don't know any series set in a class of mature students. And that would actually be a nifty-cool setting, because it brings together the widest variety of people all going through all kinds of life stuff as well as classes.
And I'm pretty sure there's a lot of people who haven't thought to try it yet. Maybe people who could look at a story and think "woah! sounds like me! also, cool!" and then go study and have a whole different life because they got that idea at that time.
So that's what stories do.
And on another level... there's people who get to be in hero stories, and romance, and all across every channel all the time. And then there's the *other* people. And the weird freaky thing is, even when they call the 'other' people minorities, I'm pretty sure they add up to most people. I mean rich white pretty healthy men cannot in fact make up the majority of humans on this planet. So where are the hero stories about the rest of us? And the lack isn't just a neutral thing. It shapes expectations. It shapes what people believe about whole groups of people, or about history, or about what is possible. It really winds me up sometimes seeing things called 'unrealistic', because sometimes they just mean that someone who looks that way or has that disability or loves that kind of person couldn't possibly be the hero, or *weren't* the hero in that bit of history, and usually that's absolute bollocks.
I'm wrapping that in so many generalities it pretty much stops making sense.
What I mean...
Okay, reading through the lit textbook I developed a grand unifying theory of Isms. Which is: People can be divided up into different groups, and some of those groups have more power than others. This effects representation in a lot of different ways. Usually the less powerful get marginalised and misrepresented, and quite often they are 'they' and represented by other rather than being 'we' with a voice. And the more you notice that, the more annoying it gets.
Everybody gets a voice. Everyone has a story. Sometimes many stories. Everyone should get to be in all the stories. Because we're all people, and stories are figuring out how to be people.
And that's *important*.
So, there is a need for stories, and there is a need for stories written by someone like me.
Duty is the feeling you get when wisdom and compassion work together, when you care about something and know what to do about it.
In writing I guess that would be when you care about something and know the story that would show it, and maybe show possibilities to change it, or maybe just show the fixed version.
Honour is getting the job done no matter the personal cost.
... so, putting actual words on paper would be handy then ...
Service is knowing that you're outnumber nearly six billion to one, and doing stuff for them is all kinds of helpful.
Reckon writing stories is in fact a service, because then people read them, and sometimes find them useful and valuable.
Studying how to write makes the writing better. It also helps unearth the isms and change the focus and discuss what it all brings up and just generally bat around the ideas in a different way. Analytical. Symbol for that is a sword, blade that cuts things apart to see inside.
So it kind of loops back to the military thing right there.
Blade and wand? Sword and pen. Analytical and intuitional?
Storytelling and then thinking about the stories, and then storytelling again.
Of course somewhere in there it helps if you do some living, especially if you want to have stuff to write about, but I figure I can have a go at that as well.
Basically: Useful and valuable = stories, as well as a bunch of other things.
If I can write stories that is useful and valuable.
And figuring out how and why they are useful and valuable is pretty nifty too.
... on around four in the morning these things do not seem so very obvious to me. So I write them down with Logic. Maybe later I can write them down with Feeling and make a story of it too.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-25 05:26 am (UTC)