(no subject)

[sideways]

I know it's the cliche of cliches to look at the greener grass and sigh, but sometimes I do grumble that my creative inclinations bent in a wordy direction rather than a visual arts one. (And don't get me started on all the suckers who somehow manage both! Sheer wizardry.)

While I know there are upsides and downsides to both artforms, it often feels like the way my brain works is better suited to snapshot scenes and moments in time, and they are much easier to manage as a picture than text that requires some degree of beginning, middle, and end. I don't have novels and chapter-fics readily in me. I would love to just doodle. As I said to a friend once, sometimes I just want to capture a smile, not a story, but "sketch pages" aren't really a thing in writing.

I could always start trying to develop the skill now, of course, but I don't have the time or energy to go there in earnest. Brain already very tired most of the time. Brain doesn't want to learn anything else. It's sentence fragments or bust, kiddo.

Comments

[unavee]

I think sentence fragments and doodles could be very evocative.

[sideways]

I have seen art that qualifies as such and so would agree! Alas, I need to be able to doodle first :'(

[unavee]

I didn't want to be overly Pollyanna, but I was going to say that I don't think doodling has to take more time and effort than you have! It's up to you what you want to call a doodle, or drawing, or art.

But I also like your eloquently wordy grumble! I wish I was both more artistic and writerly.

[sideways]

There is so much greener grass, always! But then you do gardening, and what I've seen of your art looks very flash, so there is that too.

I did enjoy myself recently doing a series of deliberately slapdash, comically bad doodles for friends. As much as I sigh wistfully, it's good to give oneself permission to just Not Be Good, But Have Fun Anyway. I support the Pollyannaing as a rule.

[halfshellvenus]

I have spent years lamenting the fact that I seem to be a micro-ficcer, as I like to think of it. I excel at 100-word drabbles! I write poems! I write short stories, even, some of them around 400 words and others up to 2000+!

But the larger arc of something like a novel? That just doesn't seem to be within my creative grasp. :(

So, you are not alone!

[sideways]

Short, punchy ficcers unite! And it's not as though they don't have ample merit - I subscribed to Clarkesworld for a year once and loved it. In fact, I have some authors whose short stories I vastly prefer to their eventual novels; completing one was in their creative grasp, clearly, but I didn't find it the place their creativity best thrived.

100 word drabbles are SUCH a fun challenge!

Edit: Also I should say that I am often in awe of the speed and quality with which you turn out your microfics O: 'Short' doesn't mean 'easy', but you have a knack.