pound cake: if nobody's doing it
14 Sep 2008 10:59 amA few days ago, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lilithsaintcrow posted about the I can do it betters, and that's had me thinking about my running internal commentary when I read (fiction or nonfiction), and even a bit about when I post critiques and reviews.
It seems to me -- from what I can recall, at least -- that it's been a long time since I've read anything and actually thought, "I can do that better." I mean, although my daily focus is not story-writing per se, I have done enough of it in enough different styles to be able to say with some confidence that it would not automatically be true that I could do anything better. It would, though, be true that I can do it different.
( Which I think results in some other kind of critique thought-process, where in deconstruction I can see how the author was aiming for A, B, and C, but I'm also detached enough to see that D, E, and F were options, character- or plot-wise. )
The biggest irony about this post? ...is the fact that the draft I'd been working on (prior to losing it all in iMac deaththroes) was a review of Saintcrow's Watcher series. Whoops. Timing, timing.
Now I'm in the mood for some pound cake. Damn it.
lilithsaintcrow posted about the I can do it betters, and that's had me thinking about my running internal commentary when I read (fiction or nonfiction), and even a bit about when I post critiques and reviews. It seems to me -- from what I can recall, at least -- that it's been a long time since I've read anything and actually thought, "I can do that better." I mean, although my daily focus is not story-writing per se, I have done enough of it in enough different styles to be able to say with some confidence that it would not automatically be true that I could do anything better. It would, though, be true that I can do it different.
( Which I think results in some other kind of critique thought-process, where in deconstruction I can see how the author was aiming for A, B, and C, but I'm also detached enough to see that D, E, and F were options, character- or plot-wise. )
The biggest irony about this post? ...is the fact that the draft I'd been working on (prior to losing it all in iMac deaththroes) was a review of Saintcrow's Watcher series. Whoops. Timing, timing.
Now I'm in the mood for some pound cake. Damn it.