I'm... Back?

[obliviateamores]

It has been over a year since I have posted anything on here. Wow. My life got busier and busier, plus a bit of weird, and various mental health problems. I have kind of been hiding in a virtual hole for a long time now due to those, and I want to start poking my head out again. So, I'm hopefully going to be posting a bit more, reading more, etc. etc., and generally come back to using LJ again after this break.

I also want to write more again. My unfinished fic folder has pieces in it than my finished one. It's not good. I ended up dropping out of/flaking on a few fests before I stopped using LJ, which I still feel incredibly guilty about (seriously, so bad) so I don't think I'm going to do any more fests for a while. However, I have the fics I started for some of those, plus a massively, massively overdue fic for this_bloody_cat which I am finally working on again! Hopefully, you will see it soon. I'm so sorry it's taken me (checks...) oh god, nearly two years. Oh Christ. Sorry.


Part of the problem I always have with writing is always feeling unsatisfied. I look at something I wrote even just days ago, and it feels like it's utter shite. I never know how much of that is accurate, and how much of it is my hyper-critical nature and low self-esteem (even writing this post feels unnecessarily narcissistic). I always resolve to just put more of what I write, but hardly ever actually have. I'm going to try and be better at that now.

My mental health (to sum up briefly, mostly depression, with a little anxiety thrown in just for fun) has also made writing a lot harder. My head feels full all the time, and writing for me is often an exercise in clearing my mind and sublimating my own identity to allow the characters and narrative to be my most important thoughts. This has felt almost impossible, but when I do achieve it, I often end up feeling quite a bit better afterwards. So part of what I'm going to try to do is just make more time when I sit down and try to write, in the hope that will help me.


So, I'm going to be floating around a bit more! Also, I'm looking for a beta now I'm trying to write more, so if you fancy volunteering even just for a short thing, that would be incredible! I'm happy to offer my beta-ing services to anyone as well, should they be required - self-professed grammar nerd here.

Comments

[sassy-cissa.livejournal.com]

Nice to see you again!! Welcome!! ♥

[obliviateamores.livejournal.com]

Thank you! 😀

[digthewriter]

Welcome back.

I really like your journal layout. It's very pretty.

[obliviateamores.livejournal.com]

Aww thanks! I have a minor obsession with tesselating swirls and things :D

[themightyflynn]

Welcome back! :)

[obliviateamores.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[this-bloody-cat.livejournal.com]

It's always going to happen -- that, reading through stuff you wrote yesterday and feeling like it's total crap, like anyone could do better than you. Just, try to remember, it's all in your head, and that you're getting better at it. You see, I always thought that this one problem stemmed from my drive towards perfectionism. So... well, you see, it doesn't even make sense. In the end I just decided to keep writing -- although I changed that, somehow; I now write in my language -- and try to avoid reading the things I've written in the past. They're still getting comments, so I'm trusting those people, the ones who actually spend time reading through what I've written, to tell me I'm good enough, that the feelings I tried to describe got through. And that's what matters. Not what I think of them :)

[obliviateamores.livejournal.com]

I think you're right - trying to keep moving forward rather than dwelling on previous writing is the way to keep going. And what you say about writing in your own language tallies with some things I've been thinking about to do with finding my own voice. English is my native language, and that's all I write in, but I do find it hard not to try and fit with any style of writing that I've enjoyed recently, and keep my voice natural and my own.

[enchanted-jae.livejournal.com]

Good to see you again, and I hope to see more of you!

[obliviateamores.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Lurking around a bit more now 🙂