reenka

there's like a writer's curse, or something, at work for me, it seems. maybe it's like when you do architecture for a living, you start seeing the supports and the angles and the window-types and "can i do this" and "no, i don't have the money for that" and "damn, that stone is expensive", instead of, "oh, what a beautiful building"-- which you're still aware of, but there are all these other things crowding in.

in general, reading is a joyous thing, and the better the writer, the more pleasure's there to be had. i hadn't tended to -notice- the details of sentence composition, quality of dialogue, word-choice, not on a conscious level. it was something i was aware of in the background, but it didn't overwhelm the sense of being taken away by the story, being lost in the fictional world.
    and now, it's like i've got this stubborn, horrible mind for details. not all the time-- i definitely do let go a lot, still. but it was just kind of scary, perusing a book on a bookstore shelf and seeing it from an editor's/fellow writer's perspective, and thinking, "wow, that's smooth and professional".

gah.
i'm not even mentioning any sort of jealousy or feeling of inadequacy-- which happens a lot too. obviously, writing isn't a competition. it's not like anyone "wins", or anything, and there's room for all kinds, but it's almost like it's approaching a -sport- in my mind at this point. have to keep in shape, have to be able to do this or that with my writing, have to improve on this and this in order to begin to compare, have to tighten there and overhaul here.
    and of course, it's still -fun-. i would even say i love it more than ever, because i'm putting more effort in if anything.

and there's a range among writers' responses as readers-- there are plenty of writers who seem to totally separate the two modes-- where they're eloquent and poetic and emotional in their writing, they're more silent and basically emotive when expressing themselves as readers. it's like their whole range of expression changes. the same person who wrote that beautiful, touching love-story which broke my heart could be the same person who only says things like, "great job, i -loved- this" as a readerly response. and that's okay, i think it's just how a lot of people work.

i would guess that the less eloquent readers would be more secure with themselves and less critical of themselves and the writer while in the process of the reading itself. the thing is, i dislike critique when it interferes with pleasure. i don't like thinking, "oh, look at that, that's a well-constructed sentence, goes well there at the end of the chapter, wow, i wish i could do that". this is just something that interferes. it's pleasant to think, "oooh, pretty sentence", but when it goes much further, i think it becomes a burden.

so maybe it's just that people don't -want- to think that way and that's why their feedback tends to be spare, because their critical writerly -thinking- is spare while they read. and mine is too, usually. hopefully. it's just that when i write, i write from the same place in my head, whether it's a review or a story, that's all.
    as a side note, i actually dislike too much deconstruction of literature. it makes me queasy. that's not really related, since i'm talking about the actual language use here, the elements of style and the uses of prose in general, rather than plot. but mostly, i dislike too much plot/character analysis. especially when it becomes completely logical and like some sort of quasi-scientific analysis, an anthropology of fiction.

so i mean, i don't feel like thinking about the nitty-gritty details of a fictional world is something i want to do, because it doesn't add to my pleasure that much. it just makes me see the flaws more, and i could do without that, mostly.
    this isn't the same as speculating on a character's relationship with another character, and their personality in general. psychology is a lot less invasive and more in tune with the general subject-matter of fiction (the exploration of what it means to be human), i feel. but the details involved aren't as universal, aren't as unique to the story, so you could theoretically apply a foreign logic to them and expose them for the imperfect constructions that they are. usually, it's harder to expose a -character- or a relationship between characters as an inherently flawed construction (in original fiction), because there's a huge possible range there and logic doesn't necessarily apply.

but anyway.
    mostly was just disturbed at my sudden tendency to use x-ray vision on good, published work and think things like, "wah, i could never do -that- with dialogue" or "that just doesn't work for me". although it comes and goes, and mostly i'm still oblivious, thankfully. yeay for obliviousness. no, really ^^;
~~

thinking about the weird and wacky world of fanfiction sexual orientation and romantic mores, and how that applies to "real life". mostly people don't think of it that way (since maybe it doesn't apply), but. in shows/canon where the characters are in a number of heterosexual relationships, the idea that all this "doesn't matter", that these extraneous het love interests are interchangeable, that you can be actively hetero and it wouldn't matter because your "true love" isn't, and well, you can express that (or want to express that)-- maybe even subconsciously-- and that would be the important thing.
    then there's the idea that you can only be "gay" for that one person. people make fun of that, but there are plenty of well-written stories that have one of the main characters slashed be only interested in same-sex-person X (that they're in love with). they love them for their mind-- or even body-- but it doesn't matter, what matters is that they love, and a lot. i don't even know what to say-- maybe that does happen. little in-depth scientific research has been done in this area of human sexuality (that i know of). plus, it seems rather on the less common side.

and i suppose you can further that to say that you can be straight for just one person. i don't know if you can. can sexuality exist in a vacuum? or is it faulty reasoning to generalize under the circumstances? don't we -all- generalize our sexuality from a limited collection of people we're attracted to, of whatever gender? you can take anybody and say they "just haven't met the right person", because how do you know they haven't? and why is it only one person?
    naturally, there's this feeling like "there's an exception to every rule", and you can definitely be much more likely to select from one given pool (ie, gender) than another. but there's some sort of inherent conflict, anyway, in thinking in terms of gender vs in terms of the particularity of a given person (of either gender), isn't there?

people are always much more than their gender, and yet actual physical attraction seems to follow gender lines with people unless they mentally generalize. from what i've observed, it works-- ie, people disregard gender and are attracted to "the personality"-- if they -want- it to. if openness is their gig (if they're generally bisexual), then it works. but it's rather easy to be awfully oblivious. i guess in my experience, sexuality is both multiplicitous and singular-- singular in that we're always attracted to `that in particular' about whoever (or whatever gender), but that's just a conscious singularity. i think in terms of unconscious, instinctual attraction, it's much more multiplicitous and almost -random-. i mean, people get drunk and sleep with people they'd otherwise never be attracted to. there's this subliminal -pull- in one's psyche to just -fuck-, and in the end it doesn't matter who -that- much. we all are more susceptible to certain qualities of a person (wit, slimness, intelligence, beauty, attitude) and yet gender-preference remains, so there's a generalization there.

there are these stories about hetero-identifying policemen who use male prostitutes before arresting them. and to them, it's "just sex". i don't know what my opinion is. i think it's rather possible it -is- just sex sometimes, and sometimes it isn't. but a clinging to identity in this way, "okay, i want this or that but i'm hetero/homo anyway", just disturbs me. sleeping with girls and saying you're "really" gay seems off to me. sleeping with one girl and deciding you're suddenly hetero also seems off. it becomes almost meaningless, being used to casually redefine things that naturally have such fuzzy boundaries. it seems pointless, then.

i don't mean to say that the divisions themselves are pointless-- ie, "gay" or "straight", because a lot of people do fit them. it's when things are obviously fuzzy-- ie, you get conflicting symptoms-- and you still try to make it black and white, that i feel rather incensed. the drive to make certain and clear-cut something that obviously isn't, bugs the hell out of me. and i suppose it does matter whether the attraction is -conscious- or merely a manifestation of the ever-present urge to fuck anything that moves (in which case, classification may again be pointless in some cases). but if it -is- a conscious attraction that is romantic as well as physical in nature, then it matters, that's all. even if your character (or you) want just that one person of whatever gender, that's enough to make you not be of a sexuality that contradicts that utterly. because what's the purpose of the classification, really, if you're going to seriously contradict it? you can say you're -mostly- of the one sexuality, but you can't just say you aren't of the other at all.

if people can be in love with two people at the same time (of their usual gender preference) and not be said to -not love- one with the same veracity simply because more than one is too much, then certainly you can love two (or more) people of different genders without having to pick one to be "more real". and no, i don't know why the rant, except that i'm sensitive/semi-defensive about my own little corner of sexual orientation (ie, you know, the middle corner).