Must a soulmate support the writing, or the ACT of writing?

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

Actually, I thought this might be enough fodder for its own post, which I hope is not presumptuous.

EDIT:From quill_shadow's blogflog:
From pith's blogflog!!! (sorry, guys! ^__^):

However, I don't think a married couple necessarily needs to be all up in each other's business. So he didn't like your writing. Big deal. Remember the part about diversity being good, LKH?

I agree with this wholeheartedly, and it immediately brought (yet another) recent Kit Whitfield blog post to my mind which dealt with just this.

http://www.kitwhitfield.com/2008/06/my-boyfriend-hates-my-books.html

As always, nothing is universal (nor do I believe any universality is suggested here), but this is quite cool just in case one does find oneself in this situation.

The kernel (emphasis mine):

"...[W]e had to draw up a treaty, which enabled us both to get what we wanted: he would enthusiastically support the act of my writing, and I wouldn't make him read it. I tell him how many words I've written today, he applauds, and that's it. He still hasn't read my completed second novel, and has only the vaguest idea of what's happening in my third. And we've both cheered up.

"[....]Even people you're close to aren't necessarily your ideal readers. That feels counter-intuitive: writing is so personal that it's hard to credit that someone you're emotionally involved with might love you and hate your work. But it's true nonetheless. The idea of a soul-mate who loves your writing because it's the purest expression of you is simplistic: your writing is one expression of you, very possibly of the part of you that you keep out of your relationships for the sake of peace."

(How much do I love that she so often seems to have just the right answer?)

Comments

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

That is quite beautiful. I never expected my husband to love my writing when we started dating, he just did. And even if he didn't, it wouldn't have mattered.

[brightlyiburn.livejournal.com]

I've actually gotten frustrated with my fiance recently, because he never has an ill word to say about my latest work. Not that I -like- hearing the negative, but I know I'm going to have to eventually, and I'm not the most thick skinned person, so I could use some practice.

I'm pretty sure he isn't just saying it because he's afraid to hurt me, since that hasn't stopped him in the past. But it's just weird to have anyone, even a loved one, have absolutely no complaints about something I'm writing.

[pith]

(Actually, that was my post, commenting on the "Top Ten Things..." list, I think.)

I keep hoping Benighted will be released in MMPB. I may have to speed up my buying process. I do try to separate the author from the book, but nowadays, I don't want my money going to support someone's ego and bad behaviour (e.g., LKH).

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

Whoops! I had way too many tabs open when I did this. Fixing. ^__^

(She can get carried away with some stuff, I think, but so far she seems very well-behaved. Hee.)

[christraven.livejournal.com]

Heh. My g/f doesn't hate my work, but she definitely has issues with the stylistic side of it. It's like we're paraphrasing Amadeus when she's proofreading it:

"Too many notes words."
"My work has just as many words as I require, neither more nor less."
"Well, the fact remains that there are only so many words that one's eye can see in an hour. Simply cut a few."
"Which few did you have in mind, majesty?"

:D
She just thinks that 'simpler is better', and it bugs me while it goes on, but I do see her point. :)

I think it's rather arrogant and childish to assume that one's mate is going to automatically lurve everything that one does.

I also could never stand to live with someone who didn't have anything to say as criticism towards anything I did. Life would be like the "whatever you like" scene from Coming to America

Apparently I have movies on the brain today.

[bludflower.livejournal.com]

Funny, I almost asked if you were really my boyfriend in disguise. >__>

I'm always telling him *tactfully* that his narrative voice is too stiff and loaded with too many 50 cent words for a reader to actually feel anything when they read, and that sometimes "spit" packs more or a punch that "expactorate" when it comes to fiction.

[caudebac.livejournal.com]

Haha, that's my boyfriend's major complaint too.

"Not that this is bad...because it isn't. But there are too many words."
"What?"
"Words. Too many."
"Where?"
"Everywhere! This sentence is a paragraph!"
"Dickens did it!"

:P

[christraven.livejournal.com]

Shit is shit.

The world would be a far better place if LKH would realize this fact.

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

Eddings is less ambitious than Jordan, I think, and so he's Boring Generic Guy, (To Me!) but more polished. Jordan sort of ventured out of the generic into something interesting, but in a fucked up way. Gave up on one, couldn't get into the other.


(Annnnnnnd it just occurred to me I might be confusing Eddings with Feist. I'm nice to Feist because of his "Daughter of the Empire" collaboration with Wurts, where I think he was the senior partner, but I do feel the same way about his solo stuff as I do about Eddings: "No, thank you, chapter one was quite enough." Raymond Feist and Janny Wurts weren't married or anything, were they? ^___^)

::sigh of relief::

[xanath.livejournal.com]

I have a handful of friends who enjoy the same things I do in books. And my family . . . doesn't. One boyfriend did, one girlfriend did, and the rest fell between, "Yay! Creative girlfriend!" and "Oh, shit, two steps from crazy cat lady!"

Frankly, it's not even a criteria for someone. I can handle them not liking my work, because I don't like people looking at my work until I think it's ready to be seen. And when I think, "beta reader," it sure as hell isn't the person who sees me naked on a regular basis. That's a little too much togetherness, a lot like going to the bathroom together.

[quizzicalsphinx.livejournal.com]

I have one book in particular that my husband finds deeply troubling because it unintentionally mirrors a lot of his high school experience. He's read enough of it to tell me that it's very well-written and coherant, but he hates the story itself and won't touch it. It's kind of a downer, but it just goes to show you: sometimes it really isn't for everyone

[bludflower.livejournal.com]

Good advice there. My boyfriend is honest if he doesn't like one of my stories. It doesn't bother me because our tastes differ so much, so I don't take it personally. I personally don't like very much of his writing. He's one of those fair-weather writers who like the idea BEING a writer more than the time and effort it takes to actually hone the craft. *yes, note the bitterness of THAT unresolved arguement*

Our narrative styles are polar opposites, but we still manage to be crazy about each other and support one another and not take any criticisms to heart.

I'll still take that over my ex who was so impressed with his "artsy, intellectual" girlfriend that he'd pimp out my unfinished stories to everyone he could. That much attention dries up the creative juices and takes the ownership away from your work.