Banging head on the looking glass

[sistermagpie]

When I was little I used to sit in front of mirrors and try to figure out a way to get inside. I was especially fascinated by the reflection of my bedroom on the window at night; for some reason that looked even more 3-dimensional and climb-into-able than the mirror at times.

Also, the pull chain on the light in my mother's closet had this little geometric plastic thingie hanging from it that seemed like it was very cozy inside (like I Dream of Jeannie's bottle) and would be good to travel around the world in to go on adventures, maybe travel through time and other dimensions. It was very pink. I also used to draw secret doors in the stone wall underneath the hill in my backyard.

The point of this being,

I mean *that* kind of writing, where you can actually write yourself into the mirror? Because that's what reading a good book feels like to me. I think that's why I like big fat detailed universes like the kind in Victorian novels, because you open this brick on the subway and literally drop into another world for a while. I just feel like since I've been very small I've struggled to actually create something like that and how do people do it?

It's not just being able to use words well. I'm much more confident about words when I'm using them to argue or explain or just converse. But using them to...create is damned hard. It's like doing more with less, in a way. In grad school I took one English lit class and while I obviously love analyzing literature it made me run happily back to the Arts department because I felt like as much as I liked talking about the text it was just a whole different world than writing a text. I don't usually feel like the two things have to be set up against each other at all, but I remember feeling kind of annoyed at what seemed like a desire to own or claim the text through analysis. Specifically, I remember thinking that the woman teaching me Virginia Woolf (it was a class in Modernist Lit) so obviously thought Virginia Woolf would think she was really cool, if she'd known her. And maybe she would, but maybe she wouldn't--maybe she would have liked some person who has totally different tastes than you do. And even if she did, who cares? The artist is nothing compared to the art. It made me appreciate the people in my regular classes more, even if I didn't care a bit for what they were writing, you know?

I guess it's sort of an Easter egg phenomenon? A flawed story can yield up incredible analysis. The analysis can be "better" than the story, in fact. Yet the analysis is still dependent on the original text. It can't exist without it. The worst story, otoh, can exist perfectly well without analysis. Plus, while different theories can co-exist side-by-side, they are each separate unto themselves, whereas a story can just encompass all these different ideas at once. You crack it open and there's so much STUFF there--it's bigger on the outside than it is on the inside. It's an Easter egg. Or a prism. More metaphors! More! Okay, it's like Mother Gigogne and her Polichinelles--ha!

It's just so hard to get things out of your head and onto the paper. Not even just creating real people who say real things that subtly move along a story while they sound like they're just shooting the breeze, but making you feel like you're there wherever there is. It's not just describing...well, it is because you have to help someone see/hear/taste/touch/smell it, but it's got to be there all the time, even if you're not aware of it...that means not just describing something but...infusing it with the feeling you want it to give the reader. So that as a reader I don't even care what's happening, I just want to be in that place. Sometimes if I think to notice what somebody is doing in a story, I'll realize I don't even know half the things they're telling me I'm looking at, or if I know them I might never think to picture them somewhere, you know? Like when willow_wode describes a barnyard I'm all, "I wouldn't even know those things are in a barnyard, but when she mentions them I can actually smell 'em!" Or this recent description from SohW:

"The lawn sloped gently down toward a thicket of trees, dotted with row after row of monuments that wavered and ran in his sight, liquid grey. Past them, Harry thought he could see, barely visible, a circle of low, plain headstones huddled amongst the trees, separated from the rest of the graves by a narrow stream."

I've been "seeing" those headstones ever since I read Chapter Four.

::Sigh:: I don't do that very naturally, which is weird because I "see" things in my head really clearly. In fact, I tend to stare at things in love to take a picture to keep in my head if I like it--there's a passage in Proust that describes that really well so made me incredibly happy to read, but I don't have it handy. He's staring at a small thicket of trees...

You have to do that with *everything* in fact--even characters are part of it. The characters have to seem to make sense, like little worlds in themselves, though really they're part of the larger world you're creating anyway, a world you pulled out of your head. I guess that's the amazing thing about art in general, that you're trying to take something of how you experience life and give it to somebody else, just translating it into music or dance or artwork or photography or whatever. Maybe that's part of the appeal of fanfic, that you're still sharing the inside of your head with people, but it gives you a structure to wrap yourself around. Or, um, something.

...shakes head, goes off muttering.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Wordy McWord over here.
You don't know me, but I really like your posts and this time I thought I'd come out and talk a little.
Some of the greatest stories I ever read were fanfic, because the story was already there; you just found a new path in the garden. Those people who can write and have me smelling fresh-cut grass and smiling because I can feel the sun on my shirt when I'm reading during a _thunderstorm_--they are the people I want to be.

Katarik

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Wow, thank you so much! That's a great description too--it is another path in the garden. And some fanfic writers can make the garden more real or as real as the original.:-)

[katarik.livejournal.com]

*grin* Glad you liked it!
Agreed; mistful's or reenka's would qualify, I think.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Mmm yes, good stories are-- have always been-- all about escapism for me, which is all about creating a world, finding a world, -discovering- a world that is imaginary yet real-- so real it can't be imaginary. All those little details one can see with a good writer-- it seems as if the world is completely separate from the writer -and- from the reader, and was always just there, waiting to be plucked from the collective unconscious. I suppose that's why people (like Tolkien) talk about their writing as a process of discovery also-- it's not that they create it laboriously but that they 'see' it in their mind's eye, and then describe it.

I've found that's how writing original fic works for me, too-- it's not that I make it up but that I 'see' it-- it's not a writing skill sort of thing but a sort of... act of imagination, I guess...? One opens one's "dream eyes"-- and overlays one's real eyes, that see the details of the natural world, on top of that. So ideas become concrete, and everything metaphorical and enchanted is filtered through the senses. It's a question of sight-- one sees the other world and then the writing down is easy after that. As for seeing it in the first place-- that's a question of being open to one's dreams. Everyone's dreamland is huge-- limitless-- and once one learns to let the unconscious mind flow, the expanse of resulting imagery is huge.

Everything fits, yeah, but it's an unconscious process as far as I know-- not a skill, precisely. It's a loosening of barriers, I think, between the real and the desired.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Everything fits, yeah, but it's an unconscious process as far as I know-- not a skill, precisely. It's a loosening of barriers, I think, between the real and the desired.

Yeah, that's it! With me I almost wonder whether I'm all that visual or not, because I'll have more a feeling of what it's like, but it's hard for me to really look around and name the things I'm "seeing" or smelling or whatever. Because sometimes just a single detail is enough--overdescribing can just kill it.

It's funny because on my own I probably skip description a lot...at least I know I do when I'm writing in other universes. I've had editors ask me to go back and stick stuff in--what's the kitchen like? Could you say something about what the character looks like? And sometimes I get really awkward about it, where I feel like it's just obvious I'm sticking description here so everybody has to hear it and it sticks out like a sore thumb.

It's almost a gift when you've got a character who's experiencing things for the first time--like in the OotP re-read we just did the MoM chapter and Harry can just walk in and be overwhelmed by everything and so can we.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

It's been a relief for me, actually, writing fanfic-- 'cause um, I get to skip description, which I get bogged down with in original writing. I'm SO visual that I just describe & describe & describe & describe.... blah blah blah I don't think my characters ever really come alive because I'm constantly describing their world & appearance & even their emotions. Writing fanfic let me actually notice the other aspects of my writing & concentrate on dialogue & such ^^;;

I loved the MoM scenes probably best besides the Quidditch fight & the pensieve chapter, and yet I keep forgetting to mention that 'cause I associate that with just writing I enjoy, nothing special-- like, of course I'd enjoy the surroundings, that's why I -read- :>

It's kinda ironic that description is so... difficult to attain the right level with. Either too much or too little. I think the thing there is editing. Go overboard and then prune, kill, destroy :>

[mirabella]

Yeah, I think everyone who writes really struggles with this, because what comes out onto the paper is only ever a shadow of what you see in your head, and even then it never looks the same to you as it does to other people. I always figure that if I'm getting across a minimalist black-and-white sketch of what I see, that's better than nothing; but for me part of the problem is that, like you, I'm a very visual person, and finding the right words to convey visual material in a written medium isn't always easy.

It's a perpetual disappointment, though, because I really do want people to be able to see the world I'm writing in through my eyes and it's hard to figure out how to help them do that.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

It's a perpetual disappointment, though, because I really do want people to be able to see the world I'm writing in through my eyes and it's hard to figure out how to help them do that.

Yeah, it's like there's nothing more perfect than the blank sheet of paper. Once you start writing the flaws come out.

I sometimes wonder if I am really visual or whether I just want to be. Like, when I think of something in my head I'll have a very clear, general idea of what it is but I've always been bad at describing what it looks like. It's like I know how what it looks like makes me feel, but don't have the details. Of course the best descriptions put the two together--that SohW scene isn't so much about "seeing" the graveyard but seeing it infused with the emotions of the scene.

[wheelerwoolsey.livejournal.com]

I struggle with the same thing in my writing. You're absolutely right---using them to create rather than to argue or converse is so much more difficult.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, who knew creating could be that difficult--yet it's probably the first thing we use them for, you know? I mean, as a child you probably start out wanting to name and describe things.

[shusu.livejournal.com]

It's just so hard to get things out of your head and onto the paper.

I was just thinking about this. 'Cause finally, finally I'm back where I was five years ago, writing-wise, psychologically etc. And this is where I usually stop. Because, well, it's hard work! It's draft after draft after draft of patching up holes, wrangling people to speak up and tell you where the holes are, and at the same time trying to keep the picture in my head. It took a long time before I stopped beating myself up for losing or blurring the picture in the course of writing.

As they say, they don't see the last 20 drafts. They only see the final draft. All big things start from little things, even for the most brilliant of writers.

Fanfic to me is easier. Because it's a lovely shortcut. It skips the whole minefield. I guess with one's own creation, from the ground up, you have to remember why you love it. Like this voice kept at you, or this scene had to be written, or the theme was irresistible. That part -- creating the world -- is to me mostly about keeping yourself open to see *and* translate that new world. It almost doesn't matter if you're successful off the bat. Just gotta take the journey, and have faith that the happy accidents will happen. Keeping oneself open is work, work, work. With practice, some of the happy accidents can be sniffed out before they happen.

I guess what I'm trying to say is... you don't get to admire the mirror until you step into it. Shards and all.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I think that's why I tend to really notice in fanfics when the author is also able to give you a powerful sense of their version of the world, since you really don't have to. Plenty of fanfic is really character pieces (nothing wrong with that) that almost exist in limbo with the reader filling in the world. So it's almost more surprising when someone also brings to life the setting which you usually take for granted, or adds to it. Off the top of my head I feel like a lot of Tolkien fanfic writers might do this more, perhaps just because his world is very foreign and very present in his own work, so people might naturally pay more attention to it unconsciously.

But I'm glad you've stopped beating yourself up!:-)

[arclevel.livejournal.com]

On the one hand, I see what you're saying. Writing is so much harder than it looks, and writing well, harder still. OTOH, my problem seems to be more motivational than anything else (I'll probably post something to this effect soon).

Also, I think where you lose me is the lovely imagery. I'm really *not* a visual person. I remember a reading class in second grade, where we were doing an imagery exercise. The teacher had us close our eyes, then read aloud a vivid passage about rock rising from the earth in a tower, and the red lava spewing in the air and sliding black down the mountain, and the dark sky with the giant gray cloud overhead in the darkening sky (or something like that). Then he asked us if we all saw a volcano. Everyone else raised their hand. I didn't. I knew the passage was about a volcano, but I certainly couldn't see one. He pressed the issue, and I decided that he meant something else by "see," and lied that yes, I could see it. It was really only a couple years ago that I realized that most people actually do see things in their minds like that. I do occasionally, of course, but it's fairly rare, and is either some horrible image I'm trying to get rid of, or else I have to concentrate, at which point I get a quick flash of it.

The point of this is that passages like that which really move some people tend to bore me. I frequently skim over all the imagery, because at the end of it, I still don't have a picture in my head. Then, of course, I get confused, because a color was very important, or because I really *do* want to know spatio-positional information. In your example, he's at the river, so he's past the tombstones. No, wait, the circle is across the river, he's past the rest of them. Alternately, Snape's hand is where? No, wait, where's Harry's left knee during this? ;-) That's more the type of "picture" I get -- it's really a diagram.

Because of that, on the occasions I actually write, I tend to use basic descriptions, but I don't try to do vivid; it seems pointless to me, even though I know other people get a lot it. If anything, I'm inclined to give descriptions of the setting mingled in with other material (ie, "he ran his hand across the ivy climbing the stone pillars as they walked through the gate"), to let the picture develop slowly and adjust in people's minds. I think it's a similar mechanism to showing, not telling, with characterization. The difference is that painting the full picture with vivid imagery has its own wonderful effect (on most people), as opposed to laying out a person's entire personality in a paragraph of exposition.

I suppose most of this had nothing to do with what you're talking about. Sorry for rambling in your journal. Hope something of it was at least vaguely interesting.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, it is interesting! And I know what you mean. I think the writers I really admire are ones that can give you a feel that you're in this other place *without* overly describing or getting me confused, because I'm really not good at all when it comes to following those kinds of descriptions. It's like I was recently talking about Diana Wynne Jones and saying that what I liked about her writing as opposed to some fantasy writers was that she didn't seem to over describe and nail everything down. You had room to breath in her universe. Description just for the sake of description tends to make my eyes glaze over.

But this is even, for me, more than just describing the world, especially since I prefer writing that gives you room to breath. It's more like something you shouldn't even notice so you don't have to really close your eyes and try to picture it, you can just read along and feel something. If I have to be able to see things literally I'll probably get confused--I'm more the type to just think okay, I know the thing is in the room so if somebody picks it up later it will make sense...but I'm never going to be aware of how close they are to it during the scene or things like that.

And really what you're bringing up is another wonderful thing about writing, because description isn't the only thing that goes into it. Plenty of great authors are very sparse in their descriptions and give feeling through other things, which is great. Some writers who are very known for their descriptions probably bore me for the same reason because I'd rather just skip to the character interaction. But all those things are part of making the world come alive that way. Being able to "get" a character's voice as a reader(even if you're not hearing it literally in your head you're getting something) is just like "seeing" (or not seeing) the world, you know?

And now I'm looking forward to your post.

[chresimos.livejournal.com]

A flawed story can yield up incredible analysis. The analysis can be "better" than the story, in fact. Yet the analysis is still dependent on the original text. It can't exist without it. The worst story, otoh, can exist perfectly well without analysis. Plus, while different theories can co-exist side-by-side, they are each separate unto themselves, whereas a story can just encompass all these different ideas at once.

Wow, that's a beautiful analysis! Yes yes yes! *ships Book/Analyses* :D

Though I'm sure this wasn't your intention, your post makes me reflect a bit weirdly on the whole 'modern art' phenomenon, which I've been having some grrrarghness with lately. :/ Anything modern arty is practically crushed by the weight of its own criticism, while simultaneously claiming to throw off criticism. And...I like stories that take me somewhere; escapism has always been a big thing for me, even if it's not some elaborate fantasy universe, just some well-described other place.

The problem with a lot of genre stuff, too, is that people seem to forget the elements of realism that root the reader, even when the most bizarre fantasy stuff is going on. I always try for that vividness in my writing, although I'm not sure it comes across because my prose style is a bit detached. I was reading a trashy novel recently, and that was one of things that I noticed about it - although every element of it was rather silly, it still had a basic plot, the dialogue still moved things along, it had structure, a balanced cast, blah blah...but it was all so hollow, so flat. People would pass in and out of rooms without more than a throwaway 'it was dark' description. I had no idea what the main characters looked like because they were just dismissed with 'beautiful' or something and some clinical description of their hairstyle. There was no dimension!

But, eh. I don't (as far as I can tell) have a problem with picturing myself in some elaborate fantasy situation, and then trying to describe it as realistically and vividly as possible, with the intention of drawing the reader into this vision in my head. The bit I'm stuck with now, is *knowing* whether or not my words are actually conveying what I'm thinking. I could write 'the cool blue dawn', say, and the sensory images could hit me really strongly, but a jolly reader, whose mind is not in the moment, coming newly to the page...will it impact them the same way? It takes a long time before I can edit my stuff properly...ages before that initial mental image fades, and I can judge how well the words do all on their lonesome. :)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Book/analysis=OTP!!

I wasn't thinking of modern art but it strikes me as exactly what you say. It does indeed get crushed under the weight of the very criticism it's claiming to throw off!

People would pass in and out of rooms without more than a throwaway 'it was dark' description. I had no idea what the main characters looked like because they were just dismissed with 'beautiful' or something and some clinical description of their hairstyle. There was no dimension!

Yes, it's like impossible to really put your finger on just what has to be there for it to come to life. There are some basic writing rules, like "beautiful" is basically tell not show--it's generic but we have no idea why she's beautiful. But then, there are plenty of Mary Sue fics where the beauty is described in great detail yet is still generic or sounds like one of those modern art pieces (the woman seems to be a strange jumble of jewel-like colors and shiny features that don't fit together into a human face).

I've been thinking about it too because I'm now re-reading I Capture the Castle whose title is about exactly this--capturing the image or place. It's a book that has wonderful characters but reading it it really is the descriptions that stand out most vividly. Yet it's not just description, because the point is that the narrator is infusing the descriptions with her own emotions. Somehow because of the way the book is set up (a girl writing in a journal) the setting seems to come forth the most clearly while the characters are one step removed because you're getting them through Cassandra's pov. When she describes her character as a "very pink person" you get a sense of her physically, but her personality is subtly more opaque because Cassandra doesn't always understand her, if that makes sense. I haven't seen the recent movie they made of it, and one reason is I just feel like taking away Cassandra's voice makes it a very different story, even though with these characters it should still be engaging.

And yet it's very emotional; it's not as if the people don't come alive. Like last night I was reading the chapter where Cassandra essentially describes the first time anyone looks at her "that way" and it's just as vivid as the castle at sunset. That, I think, is just what you mean about conveying not just the way things look but how they feel because of how they look.

At the same time, though, to reference arclevel's comment, I don't think I ever truly "see" the castle in terms of exactly how everything works together or how you get from one place to another. I just get vivid corners of it.

[go-back-chief.livejournal.com]

I wanted to reply to this post last night, but I wasn't really sure what to say. Well, I'm still not sure, but it was interesting reading the comments, especially archlevel's. I think I do tend to visualise things quite a lot when I read, but at the same time, I completely agree him/her about overly long (seemingly unnecessary) descriptions being boring, and/or confusing. Also, I'm guessing that because I visualise things very much, I really don't want the writer to tell me exactly how everyone and everything looks, because it's like, I can get annoyed if in the middle of the story I find out that someone or something looks completely different from what I had imagined, if that makes sense? Or, "annoyed" is a strong word, perhaps, but let's just say that it throws me off, and consequently distract me from getting completely sucked into the story.

But I guess the key-word really is "necessary". You should cut off all descriptions that are unnecessary. And when I say "necessary", I don't mean it as strictly as it may sound. Not all "necessary" descriptions need to be necessary-necessary. For example, a detailed description of something that doesn't really have anything to do with your plot, or your characterisation of the main character, can still, sometimes, be necessary to set the mood in a scene, and that's important too, because the "right set mood" is definitely one of those things which can make the difference between a story that merely "works" and a story that "comes to life".

I'm not big on descriptions in my own writing, and it's something I've tried to get better at for years. The trick, I guess, is knowing what to describe and what not to, and equally important is how to. It's important to be specific instead of general and cliched. Of course, that's easy to say. I tend to avoid descriptions of character's looks altogether (unless it really is important to the plot), because I often get annoyed when writers think it's so damn important (and I felt this way long before I knew either what fanfic or Mary Sues, were), and prefer characters described by mannerisms and that sort of thing, instead. But then, there are writers like JKR, who in general really manages to make the looks an integral part of the characterisation.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

We are totally on the same page. It's not really that you want tons of description, especially if it's going to bring the story to a halt...the best is where it's just dropped in so you barely notice but you're *there.* JKR's physical descriptions are really good that way. Really it's like the way she does her characters in general, where they're not really detailed but have easy markers to make them types. It's one thing to have a red-headed friend, but Hermione's buck teeth and bushy hair are really classic.

Descriptions etc

[(Anonymous)]

Hi, have you ever read "Simon Small" by Astrid Lindgren? (Original title: Nils Karlsson Pyssling) If not, I would really recommend it. It's short and cute, and not that well known in English I think. It's about a boy who discovers that another boy, a tiny little boy called Simon Small, is living below his room, and that if he touches a nail under his bead he will shrink too, and may come visit Simon.

Anyway, I have been touching nails all my life, always expecting another world to appear. (When very little, I even made rescue plans, just in case I was stuck and needed to notify my family that I had shrunk.)


--
I don't write, but as a reader I find that I'm getting very choosy when it comes to description. I *want* to be able to see details and map out the story's universe in my head, but long passages of loving description (of nature, especially), I often just skip. I'll read the first one, and if it's one of those standard issue blah-blah semi-poetic things that go on and on I'll skip them for the rest of the story.

Sometimes I feel that a lot of authors must have read the same "how to describe something at length" guide, and that they more often than not fail to make description work within their own language and style, thereby ruining their pacing, a bit like a long exposition scene in a movie. (Another fool proof way of ruining the pace: poetic interludes in a different POV.)

I know some people like that sort of thing, though, and I think it's ultimately a question of how one likes to process information and what kind of worlds or pictures our imagination thrives on.

Personally, I prefer broad strokes, getting the big picture, or a rough caricature. My mind automatically fills in blank spaces and little details, anyway, and rationalize to make things work within the story.

Other people, I have found, rather like to *collect* the correct little details, get all the facts, have everything specified, and build themselves a *true* model in their head. To me, a story by an author who writes for that kind of imagination is a bit like trying to find out what an impressionistic painting depicts by going as close up to it as I can get and focus on a few individual dots - I can see the dots fine but they don't *mean* anything unless you step back and take a broader look. Similarily, I think the "true model" kind of person would get infinitely frustrated by the kind of clues I like when I'm recreating the place of the story, perhaps a bit like being stuck in front of a Picasso if what you wanted was to find out the exact colour of his model's skin and what shape her nose was.


When I read HP fanfiction, some of the things I find really appealing are the pre-existing framework and references that make the fanfic author free to concentrate on e.g. the dynamics of a relationship, or snazzy dialogue, and skip all the world-building descriptions. I have found that the stories that I think are most successful and well written usually have very little in common with Rowling's books, style-wise. The stories that do resemble her voice and style most closely fail, for me, in that their "authenticity" remind that they're not, instead of transporting me into her universe. Stories, however, that take the HP universe for granted and bring the characters off on a tangent in the writer's voice, may create nice little rooms of HP (im-) possibillites, that may again inspire a different reading of canon.

Thanks for allowing strangers to comment!

- Clara

Re: Descriptions etc

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Thanks for commenting, stranger!:-)

I think I'm much the same way with description--I don't like feeling like I'm weighed down under it or having to work to really see what the author is seeing, as if they're giving me directions at a gas station or something. A few details are much nicer, I think, where you can fill in the rest yourself.

And also word on authors learning "how to describe" and often not putting it in their own words--yes. I think a lot of authors probably feel like this is something they should be doing as an author, while the best authors use description when it's part of the story and really moving things along. Like I said to somebody above, I've had editors ask me to put in some description and I find myself always tempted to put in these ridiculous sentences where for no reason something's described--and it's usually something lame like somebody's brown hair! But occasionally there's a time when describing the thing is just another way of making the same point and it comes naturally--that's much better. I often feel like that when I read the two writers I mentioned in the post, in fact. The graveyard scene is about the bleakness of the scene as well as what it looks like, for instance.

Often you can really tell when somebody is collectng details--I remember reading a manuscript once that was historical and it was just so obvious that the author had done research and was bound and determined to get in every fact she knew even when it was ridiculous. I don't think the heroine would think about how she ground her coffee beans in 1892 before she drinks it, for instance.

I'm going to have to look for that Astrid Lindgren because I don't think I've ever heard of that one. That woman was a genius!:-)

Re: Descriptions etc

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, she was, wasn't she. Almost everybody I know have some sort of mythical relationship to at least one of her characters. Even fairly non-reading people are able to quote their favourite bits and get these funny melancholic smiles when thinking about reading them at school, and the first time they saw their favourite dramatized.

And word on Proust. He does have a few nice passages...
"Lost Time" is one of the few fantastically descriptive books where it works beautifully. I have been reading the volumes with year-long breaks in between, and this feeling, two pages into a new one, where all the back story and characters and unfamiliar cultural references and his whole universe comes crashing back into view, and strange little episodes that I had forgotten about but suddenly clearly remember is quite amazing. I get Proustian moments about Proust when reading Proust, and I'm not sure if it's ironic or ridiculous.

But I couldn't read only books that demand that level of attention. After I while I feel the need to get my energy levels back up with something that relies on set patterns, action and one-liners...

- Clara

a picture's worth...

[petitesoeur.livejournal.com]

http://www.fotolog.net/sylvia/?pid=8811567

Re: a picture's worth...

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yup, that's what it's like, alright. I don't understand these people who "enjoy" writing either. I remember reading some book on writing where the author was going on about feeling sick if she didn't write, like it was this great sensual experience and...no, it's not.

Re: a picture's worth...

[petitesoeur.livejournal.com]

i found writing [academically] a torture otoh writing poetry was a pleasure

@ 2004-10-27 22:51 this is how i responded to sylvia's picture/caption:
this is how i feel about living my {everyday}life -- the creative things i`ve done [dance, poetry, paint, film] and do [photography]have been/are pure aesthetic pleasure as has/is engaging with the artistic endeavors of others