Weekend adventures
Aug. 21st, 2017 04:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mafiefThis weekend I was at my sister-in-law’s house celebrating my parent’s fortieth wedding anniversary. Congrats to them and we wish them many more. My two were a little confused and sung them happy birthday because we were celebrating with cake. My parents had a blast playing with their grandkids and seeing us.
My sister-in-law does a much better job at decorating than I do (I completely fail at this) and I had been to my sister-in-law’s house many, many times before but never really paid attention to items on display. Tucked into the corner of her dining room was the plaque below. Being my awkward self, I asked to take a picture of it with the books she had in her sewing room. She told me that she visited London and the Sherlock Holmes’ museum during her high school trip. I didn’t know that about her before. She then asked me why I wanted a picture of it. Cue me trying to explain to someone that I am writing fanfiction. Now there are two people that I know personally that are aware I am writing. In any case, I took the picture to potentially use it as an icon. I still need to upload and use my watson_woe icon from this round.
Also took the kids to a park and found that someone had littered googly eyes. Being a good citizen, I cleaned them up. Since googly eyes are just about my level of humor some days, I proceeded to take pictures of googly eyes on things.
My sister-in-law does a much better job at decorating than I do (I completely fail at this) and I had been to my sister-in-law’s house many, many times before but never really paid attention to items on display. Tucked into the corner of her dining room was the plaque below. Being my awkward self, I asked to take a picture of it with the books she had in her sewing room. She told me that she visited London and the Sherlock Holmes’ museum during her high school trip. I didn’t know that about her before. She then asked me why I wanted a picture of it. Cue me trying to explain to someone that I am writing fanfiction. Now there are two people that I know personally that are aware I am writing. In any case, I took the picture to potentially use it as an icon. I still need to upload and use my watson_woe icon from this round.
Also took the kids to a park and found that someone had littered googly eyes. Being a good citizen, I cleaned them up. Since googly eyes are just about my level of humor some days, I proceeded to take pictures of googly eyes on things.
no subject
Date: 2017-09-13 03:45 am (UTC)"I'm not entirely sure how she would take this"
This amuses me. My mum probably has Asperger's, and while we're very close, she has a flat affect and often forgets to communicate unimportant things like praise or pleasure to the person it is directed towards. Anyway, I dedicated one of my stories to her after she inspired me by breaking her ankle, and I based a lot of the detail on her experiences in rehabilitation. As it ended up, it was a great story I was really proud of, and I sent her the link and she was like "yeah it was good." And I was... alright, fine. I know my mum; I know she liked it, and most important, I liked it and I got the opportunity to fill it with all that realistic detail, so I'm happy with that.
Six months later, I accidentally discovered that everyone in her bridge club, half the people in her apartment building, and just about everyone she knows has read and told her they enjoyed the story because she'd been telling everyone she knew who'd ever injured themselves (which at her age is everyone XD) that they had to watch Sherlock and then read this story her daughter had written. The amount she actually says aloud to other people, it must have been all she talked about for months. And I'm like:.. oookay! So she really REALLY liked it! Lol! Another time I found out she'd convinced one of my sister's family while she was visiting that they all had to take turns around the table reading aloud on one of my stories!
I don't know your mum, but I think for the most part mums are the original and the best fans of their children no matter what they're doing. :) And, if/when you tell her (because if you're close as you say, I suspect you won't be able to hold off for long)... do remember to be clear about who else she's allowed to tell. ;)
I think the other part for me is guilt-I’m doing something not science.
I relate to this so much. For the first twenty years of my life, my identity was very much tied up in being logical and rational and black and white, and that those were the only things that I was good at and the only things that were worth doing. It's been an interesting journey of identity, and one I'm still on, coming to writing fanfiction, and to accepting creativity in its various forms as something that is not only worthwhile, but something that I'd actually been doing all the time. I've always been a very analytical writer, very logical, very conscious about the tricks that I use and the choices that I make, very thorough in my research and conscientious in my conclusions, though, so I'm still 'myself' even though I'm conducting a creative enterprise. It's made me a different kind of reader to start noticing some of those tricks as well, I think, and a better one: a rainbow is much more beautiful once you actually understand the physics that makes it happen. I've always stated that my end goal is to write original and make money off it, because that feels like it's got a purpose, at least it does to outsiders. Lately, I've been questioning that goal, and whether in fact writing fanfiction--the pleasure that end product gives me and other people, the good things that going through the process does to my brain, the channel of communication that it lights up for me with a ready-made community that makes me feel connected in a way I rarely am by ordinary people--is the ultimate goal in and of its own. I don't know, maybe I'll eventually be 100% comfortable with it as a goal in itself--I'm starting to talk to my friends and family about maybe not eventually writing original, rather than rushing to explain that I'm 'practicing' to eventually write original fiction. Which is progress for me, from back when I couldn't admit even to myself that what I was doing was creative, rather than simply filling in the gaps in a way anyone would have done if they'd been motivated to apply the same attention to detail (and of course if they'd got the right answer!).
I hope you can make peace with being a more complex person with more layers of talent and interest and identity than you thought of yourself before, and with the value of allowing your brain to wander and explore a few different paths so that it can come back to the well-worn "productive" ones refreshed with a new vigor. :)
no subject
Date: 2017-09-23 04:04 am (UTC)My mom and dad are an extremely pragmatic people. Even something fun, like the skiing they do, must have a purpose. I hate not telling her because I really don’t like keeping anything from her and this is becoming a bigger part of my life than I thought it would. So, I need to think of why I’m continuing to participate in a fandom by writing. Right now I’m planning on telling her (someday) and hopefully the timing will work out and I won’t be a chicken over it. Look! Progress.
OK, why this has taken me a while to respond... After reading this, I cried. Read it again and cried again. I needed to respond when I could emotionally go there. You are meeting me at a unique time in my life; it is the first time I don’t have clear direction or purpose and I’m recovering from academia. So, I know I’m in the midst of a lot of scary, unwanted, and frightening changes while I’m trying to figure out who I am and what I want from life. So, you touched on a sensitive spot for me. Not a bad thing, just hot button stuff I’m currently working through.
I love the creative process that produces something in the end. That was something I did with science and I’m having fun doing it with writing. One of the reasons why I started creative writing was mostly self-induced therapy. Writing with my advisor was traumatizing and I was finding a way to maybe like writing even a little bit. Writing with the purpose of writing original fiction has never been a goal of mine. I’m fascinated by people who want to go in that direction and there are certainly lots of talented people in this community.
“It's made me a different kind of reader.”
I’m noticing that this happening to me now. Now, granted, I’ve been doing creative writing since May so I’m at the beginning of this process BUT I read differently now. I’m finding that I want to read more to figure out what techniques people are using and why something is done that way. Our exchange over your Living Conditions work is an example of this. I’m also reading more poetry than I’ve ever read before. Most of it still confuses me but I’m starting to understand the purpose of it more.
“communication that it lights up for me with a ready-made community that makes me feel connected in a way I rarely am by ordinary people”
Also starting to notice that as well. If I’m with academics, we talk about academic things or dull weather. With non-academics, I usually intimidate them as soon as they find out my degree and then any sort of communication breaks down. But in this community, we can write and work through difficult emotions, sticky situations, or even silly things in the context of those two idiots.
So, I wish us both luck on this journey of self-discovery.