What are your strengths as a writer? Weaknesses? How do you compare yourself to other writers you admire?
THIS IS DIFFICULT. Therefore I will write in a numbered format, for the sake of my sanity.
1) STRENGTHS
I think I have a pretty decent command of the language; I know how to pick the right words and arrange a sentence to an aesthetic effect. I have a keen sense of observation and can pick up on the real or imagined feelings of others fairly easily. I think that will allow me to write decent, maybe even intriguing characters.
2) weaknessessss
I think I'm struggling to find my "voice", but maybe I just haven't tried hard enough. Here's why it's frustrating: I've been keeping a consistent journal for about 7 years, and there are other journals/thing I wrote from before that, and whenever I go back and read these things, I always know that it's me. Very distinctively me. But for some reason it's much harder to get that "me" into a piece of fiction, and I end up with language that might be good, but it doesn't feel genuine enough. I felt that way about Fiction Project 1. I created the effect I wanted, but it didn't feel like it was MINE. Perhaps this makes sense, but it's very possible that it does not.
3) Comparing Myself to the Writers I Admire
This is SUCH an existential dilemma. I realized recently that 99% of the writers I admire are MEN. Not that there's anything wrong with men, BUT as a woman interested in writing I should probably start supporting my own sex more. All those years of idolizing Kurt Vonnegut, only to step back and realize he's kind of a misogynist. Same goes for Chuck Klosterman. How about every book I've ever loved? Do they have any intellectual female characters? NO. The only exceptions are Arundhati Roy and Virginia Wolfe. Oh yeah, and Junot Diaz and Gabriel Garcia Marquez respect women. But that's it. If I met Ernest Hemingway, I'd punch him in the face. Seriously though.
No comments:
Post a Comment