You're broken-hearted, but you go on

[austin_dern]

So, for approaching five years now, I've written a roughly 700-word humor essay for publishing each Friday. To first order it's for me: I want to have humor essays of the kind I like and this is one way to do it. But probably like any public performer I get an outstanding thrill from learning somebody else likes what I did. The greatest thrill comes when I see someone quote me --- dglenn has been most generous in that --- or refer me to friends --- xyzzysqrl has been very kind there, and Electric Keet too --- and while I haven't caught anyone stealing my quotes for publication on T-shirts or coffee mugs, I don't think it's impossible either. I've even got a few I think might someday make it.

And the next-greatest thrill is when anyone says they're amused by something I wrote. I venture to say everyone actually reading this instead of letting their eyes skim it has posted such approval, and thank you for doing so. (I'll spare the list of names, but thank each of you for it.) Even a chuckle makes the time I spend creating these unquestionably worthwhile, and make next week's essay that much more fun to write.

Last week, lexomatic --- an old friend, impossible as it seems for the adjective to apply --- posted the kind of response that's rarest and which hurts most, but which can be the most useful to me. lexomatic identified it as a weaker piece, pointing out flaws in the construction (particularly how parts of it are really more vocal rather than written), internal logic (which I don't agree with, but see as defensible), and phrasing. They made me wince, yes, but I have to agree: several of them are serious flaws in the piece.

bunny_hugger and skwerlbuddy came to my defense against the harshness of the criticism. And I thank them, sincerely, for doing so. But ... well, technically speaking I'm a professional writer, in that I've earned several thousand dollars from co-writing textbooks, but I do want to be at least in part a real professional writer. And I know that I can't get to that level without bleeding. I try to be reasonably ego-less and to take correction in good grace. (You wouldn't believe how harsh my co-author or anonymous reviewers for the textbooks could be.)

I know some of my weaknesses as a humor writer: I depend on logic-salad to the point of it being hackwork. I've barely got any sense of character to anything I write. I've tried a few comic stories and they've pretty much wholly flopped (by my lights, at least, and I don't insist anyone who has liked them is wrong). I can, if intermittently, work on fixing the flaws I can see. It's in the hands of my sympathetic audience to tell me of the flaws I don't see. The bleeding eventually stops and I go back to writing.

Trivia: Joseph Pulitzer bought The New York World from railroad magnate/financier Jay Gould. Source: Pulitzer: A Life, Denis Brian.

Currently Reading: Emmy Noether's Wonderful Theorem, Dwight E Nuenschwander. Man, as it gets into tensors it just gets better.

Comments

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

There are different ways to write criticism. I prefer criticism of my writing to be 1) privately relayed and 2) cheerfully and gently put.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Hm. I may be a bit extreme in this but I've never been all that bothered by publicly-relayed criticism. I can't say where that personality trait comes from, particularly in light of my shying away from confrontations.

I suspect given my general obliviousness gently put criticism fails to register in my head.

[skwerlbuddy.livejournal.com]

Much of your work is, to me, very Shekley-ish. And while I absolutely love Robert Shekleys' writing, there will always be some people who just don't get the fact that unless you are willing (and able) to accept it for what it is and go along for the ride, you will probably just wind up irritated and with perhaps a bit of brain-breakage.

So to your Critic I would say, Relax! Enjoy!
(And you can too go back and retroactively not do a thing if you go about it the right way. Just ask Buzzy!)



*Buzzy, BTW, also adores your writing. He, however, takes it as gospel. Scary, what?

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Well, gosh, thank you, and thank Buzzy also. I'd not have thought of the Robert Sheckley strain in my writing, though I have read a fair bit of his.

There are, always, people who just aren't reached by a piece, no matter what; audiences and performances simply work like that. But I think lexomatic was glad to make the effort to go along with the essay and found it wasn't quite working, and if there's ways I could better connect or connect with a wider audience I'd like suggestions for how.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

I generally try not to be critical myself.. though I do encourage highly at the particular turns of phrase or overall bits I enjoy. But I wouldn't be afraid to critique a bit which struck me as odd or annoying or irksome, or to suggest a particular continuation for your eventual published revisions.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

Well, if anyone ever comes into my journal and starts telling me what sucks about my posts, they'll be banned. >:P

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

If it were about my routine, this-is-what-happened-to-me posts, I'd agree about such critiques. But the Friday pieces are meant to be performances and I feel like putting up a piece of art is inviting critiques available to about the same audience.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

I just don't feel the same way. I put up art on FA all the time, and I would stop doing it if it resulted in people giving unasked-for critiques.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I don't doubt there's some level of criticisms (in number and energy) that'd make me stop posting, but just a couple wouldn't do it. It must be chalked up to one of the differences between us.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

My point is that I don't think putting up creative works is an invitation for critique unless critique is asked for. I realize this is moot because now through this conversation you have officially authorized everyone to critique all your posts henceforth. But what I'm objecting to is your assertion that putting up a piece of art is inviting critique. If I believed that I'd never post art again, which would be kind of sad.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

It would be terribly sad if you stopped posting art. I don't believe I've ever critiqued someone harshly enough to spook them off, but --- even in my MST3K fan fiction, which can be considered a brutal sort of critique --- I don't remember giving a critique not specifically asked for either. This makes for an interesting difference between what I think acceptable behavior for me versus for other people.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

I'd say the Friday pieces are indeed the ones that draw the fewest comments from me, and yet pprrrobably the most nudges about turns of phrase or follow-up punchlines. One gets acutely aware those are *written* by a *writer*, if that makes sense; whereas the other posts are the life of my good buddy Austin.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

That's an interesting split, between the posts-written-by-a-friend versus posts-written-by-a-writer. I have had a few regular-issue pieces that turned up silly enough they might have (at the right length) been Friday pieces, and a handful of Friday pieces that were regular-day personal, but not many of either example.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

Well, it's still you, of course. And when your Friday pieces started off it took me a bit to get the difference.

--Chi

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

The Friday pieces took everybody a while to get used to, since I just plunged into them without announcing what I intended. (Come to think of it I believe lexomatic was one of the first to mention that periodically --- meaning there occasionally, not literally periodically, though it was --- my daily entry was non-realistic, without warning.) Somehow it felt like it'd be easier for me to back out, if it proved a catastrophic failure, if I went in without fanfare or bold proclamations about what I would be doing From Here On In. I do seem to work better when I start a compulsive behavior without warning about it.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I'd be glad to receive any critiques you had. Encouragement I love, naturally, but anything likely to make the work stronger makes for a better chance that I do something with all this work.