scribblemyname | (no subject)

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I’m one fanwork away from a bingo and futurefic is driving me crazy.

I know that fanfiction is your coping mechanism, and I guess I should have called it that instead of your process. I know that you need it, and I wasn't really trying to say that you should or had to give it up. I just found myself feeling like what we were doing with the collaboration was not as important as these fanfiction challenges you signed up for, and it was bothering me, even though I tried not to let it because it wasn't really anything I had a right to be concerned about. I didn't understand that it was the process, the editing that was the issue. It really did feel at times like everything else was more important than the collaboration and that some of the stuff you were signing up for were might have been ways of avoiding it. I figured I was being unreasonable, but I couldn't seem to stop because I was frustrated with the lack of progress, feeling stymied, and insecure.

Frankly, I still am insecure about it.

I understand the move not being complete. The one I helped my friend with is far from done right now, too.

I have felt before, and still kind of do, that I would rather you not tell me you're working on anything or say that it might be coming. I do get my hopes up, and then things stall out and I get down. It's just easier not to know or expect anything.

I think you still have too much going on to where we should do anything with the stories. I'd rather wait until you were better/clear than add any stress. That's why I said we should wait until you had more time.

And... It bothers me to have you say that you don't care if I do something to the story or not. Why bother if you don't care? Don't do it if you don't care. Do something you care about.

I didn't mention anything until I asked if you had any prompts, solely because it sounded the day before like you might have had some quotes or song lyrics and that stuff really works well for me. That's why I didn't mention anything until I also knew for sure my brain is gearing up to do it, whether I know what I'm doing yet or not. I can feel it coming on, which is weird, but it's kind of like the gearing up that happened before I threw together a poetry book, which to help you feel better was pretty much all written already, just not compiled.

As for caring, I don't think you'll ever really understand why I write fiction. I CARE about writing it and about writing something you'll love. I DON'T care about whether you're up to participating at any level. I can't. I can't control how people react, and I HAVE to write, so I can't hang my hat on whether anyone else loves what I do on the fiction front. I write and I cling to the ones who turn out to be kindred spirits.

We're just simply not at all the same about why we write or how we motivate ourselves, so when I say things like I don't care, what I'm saying is there's no pressure or expectations on you. Do what you want, but this is something I need or want to do and I want to do it for you, so it'll happen even though you say you'd be worried if you had to be involved. You don't have to be involved. I won't mind. I love you anyway. My love for writing and the process of gifting someone else with fiction is my own and separate from my love for you. I don't care what you do is my way of saying it doesn't matter to me what you do; it won't change that I care and we're friends and separately again that I'll keep on writing.

I'm what I am, which is a rather quirky oddball of a writer who communicates best between the lines and not so well in these sorts of conversations, but I mean that. You don't need to feel any pressure. I'm just saying you'll get a gift since I let it out of the bag by asking for help and I expect you to do with it exactly and only what pleases you.

I don't think that I have any quotes or lyrics that fit the fic we were discussing, though I do have a few things that I've been wanting to either pass along or use myself if I could get past my own writing issues.

I did misunderstand that. I guess I feel that when I'm doing something for someone I want to include them in it, and if it is a collaborative effort, I figure it's important to include the other person.

I have a similar need to write, but I did acquire an unpleasant feeling of needing to share the writing. I haven't been proud of that, and I'm working on changing it. It used to be enough just to write, and I want that back.

I really didn't understand the "I don't care" in that sense. It sounded like you were doing it for the wrong reasons, and I really didn't want that.

I wasn't trying to be difficult about it, and I know I didn't explain myself very well with a lot of that, but I was trying to make it easier and also clear some of the air with stuff I hadn't felt brave enough to voice some of that, especially since some of it was stuff I didn't have a right to be upset over.

I get that. I have things between me and my sister where it's just a case of incompatibility in certain things and we clash, then forgive each other because there's not much else to be done. I knew you resented the time it took away and I also knew it wasn't personal and that you intellectually understood, so I apologized and didn't let it go anywhere.

I also hardly ever explain my reasons. My sister often doesn't want me to do things for the wrong reasons, and I have gotten pretty stubborn about ignoring that because she's usually totally off-base when guessing what my reasoning/thinking process/intentions are. I work around people's assumptions. There's enough grief in my life correcting my sister's about me and I'm working on ignoring hers too (that's just a wee harder though). So that to say, it stands to reason you wouldn't have a thorough picture of why I'm doing something. I'm training myself out of giving long drawn-out explanations, but without those, there a lot of potential inferences I don't always head off at the pass.

And while I'd love to say I stopped posting about what else I was doing so it wouldn't bother you, it wouldn't be true. I've stopped posting anything because 1) half the time I'm not doing anything and 2) the other half, I'm too busy doing real life stuff to take time to talk about what I'm doing instead of just doing it. This move has been traumatic in terms of life activities upheaval. So I cannot promise no posts that won't mention me catching up on ALL the fronts I've gotten behind on (which are many and varied), but I do try to be sensitive in the way I talk about it. My approach to life is pick a priority or two for the day, and the rest is icing. Icing rarely happens. I'm always pleased when it does, but I don't make much effort to prioritize icing.

I understand. It is very much like that with me and my sisters (in fact, if I didn't ignore all the behavior they have that I disagree with, well... I wouldn't be able to talk to any of them, *sigh*)

I'm not proud of the way I reacted to the situation. I just have a very hard time stopping my train, and when you had to stop, I really wasn't ready to, so everything else that was "in the way" was frustrating. I am one of those people that tends to "slow boil" and then everything that was bothering me, however insignificant, can come up at once and seem so much worse than it is because it's combined, and I try very hard not to let myself give into that, but I do sometimes. And I was trying to forestall more of that behavior from myself by asking to wait until there was more time because I didn't want to start down that path again.

I used to try and explain all my issues up front when I met people, so that they would know why I was the mess that I was. I found, though, that they didn't understand even when I did that, and so I stopped explaining and only opened up to a few people after that. It's hard to find the right balance of what to tell and what not to tell, and I think it's harder on the internet because there's only text boxes to do it in, no facial expressions or voice inflections and because we only know what each person we interact with is willing/able to share so we don't know enough. It can lead to plenty of misunderstandings. My friend and I actually had to agree not to text/chat for certain conversations because we both got upset by them because it was just text.

I didn't mean to suggest that you shouldn't post about your days and what you're doing. In fact, it was kind of worrisome that you didn't. I know I overreacted to the reading ones in the past (that is a whole other part of my insanity) and again, not proud of that, but when I said I didn't want to know that you were working on stuff, it was only regarding the stuff we were doing together. It was me not wanting to get my hopes up about that story again, not wanting to restart the train. I don't think you should have to censor your posts for me, and I don't want you to. I'm sorry that wasn't clearer. I just found that when you'd say "I might have some of this in a few days," I'd try not to get excited, fail, and get frustrated again when the few days passed and there wasn't anything. I haven't been able to fix that, which was why I said I thought I'd do better if I didn't know it was coming at all.

You are free to post what you want about your activities. Really.

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