[Alternative Title: "What I Did This Summer."]
[Alternative, Alternative Title: "How I'm Learning To Give Less Shits."]

Working off of the characterization I provided in the previous "Librus Talks" thoughtpiece, I am once again introducing this by basically saying "Yeah, anxiety and trauma sucks."

The above post is from a mentor/teacher figure in my life (who actually is a teacher), Talen Lee. Odds are if you're seeing anything I make, you already have heard about him, as I've incessantly followed him around since my introduction to The Internet. But if you have not: well, firstly, check out his blog, and secondly, the above quote can be appropriated to him. The actual quote comes from an entry regarding a fandom's reaction to a Star Trek characters' sexuality, and while it's more about how "canon" in terms of full-scale major IPs is sort of a mess not worth arguing about, it rounds off in regards to how this extends to your own work and... well, something I've been introduced to calling The Panopticon.

... I'd write this on my actual website, but it's sort of in a weird limbo phase right now (that has only been enhanced due to the events disclosed here). So here we go! Witness my deep, personal thoughts and feelings, Eggbug...!

Took a late night walk around 2:30 AM to try and keep my oddball shift's sleep schedule intact. I work 9 PM to 5:30 AM, assuming no OT, and I actually prefer the shift much to the surprise of all of my coworkers who hate seeing the sun rise before getting home.

Went to explore the memorial of a supposed landing site for the Vikings where basically a rich guy in the 1850s/60s trying to add historical significance to Boston decided he found the remnants of an ancient/legendary Viking city. He built a monument to it, and then they dismissed him as a loon. Today, there's more evidence that it may have been possible, but nothing definitive and much of the evidence for it appears to be inconclusive or outright forged. Wikipedia actually doesn't go into as much detail as this podcast I listened to about a month ago here.

Anyway, this place is both walkable for me now and very close to where I was living my depression was probably at it's worst, fun! I got a little lost on purpose and found a nice little spot, probably used for fishing, along the Charles that was so incredibly serene, and so incredibly close to my dorm at Brandeis where I was going through it. Having this place to sit at and decompress would have been helpful, it was maybe a 5 minute walk from my old dorm. Cue self-criticism because I could have done better by myself, cue flashback to my ex telling me I should spend more time exploring Waltham rather than immediately skipping town to be with them at every opportunity. Yknow, downward spiraling just like the good ol' times. Thankfully much less severe than before because there was no deadlines looming.

And then I had the realization that, in the state I was in, I couldn't have appreciated finding this spot then like I was appreciating it right now. I wasn't going to make the most of my time doing anything then and I probably would have rushed back home anyway to procrastinate. I was too stressed tf out about potentially losing my scolarship n shit. Maybe it would have helped, but also, and perhaps more importantly, I owe nothing to my past self. Fuck that loser.

And then, having successfully thwarted my inner demons, I went to the tower to do some lighthearted trespassing for good measure. I realized that it being open dusk till dawn wasn't just to avoid vandalism and shit. The view is not good at 4 AM. This story is worse now that I haven't ended it with comedic self-flagellation.

Lying in bed, the meds not knocking me out only making me a little sleepy and thinking.

What do i want out of my writing?
I enjoy the process, always have. But for my latest things I'm intentionally not doing to much editing or fixes once it's done. Some of them could be longer, some shorter. Some could use better word choices or clean up. But why?
In the end I'm writing for myself and don't know how much anyone else actually reads. Is it just to flesh out a character? As something to do? There isn't an end purpose and I don't have to have one.
Writing for muse to share her story i guess. It helps to just put thoughts and ideas to page.
I'm just rambling i guess.

I went to see it tonight. I'd never seen it or even heard all of the music before, so I wasn't fully sure what to expect, other than a general familiarity with the original myth and various retellings.

Turns out it's absolutely gorgeous and a work of art in every way (as retellings of Orpheus and Eurydice should be) and I cried, and I hoped so badly that it might somehow end differently, which is of course so very appropriate given the musical itself and its final note.

Another thing that struck me about it, which strikes me again and again and again as I experience other people's art and think about it (because I naturally overthink everything, it's what I do) - the setting isn't quite literal, and it isn't quite an allegory, and it isn't quite consistent, and I feel like if I wrote something with the setting like this, I would get critiqued and told that the setting needs to be one or the other. I have internalized critique so fully that I am absolutely paralyzed with insecurity about my own writing, because I know it has flaws or inconsistencies, that my settings are not airtight and my plots and characters are imperfect, and also that my style is off-putting for some people and Generally Understood Wisdom tells us that "purple prose" is an insult and we had better try to avoid it in our own work or we'll render ourselves unsellable.

Yet again and again and again, I find that other people's stories break the rules, sometimes in quite dramatic ways. There may be plot holes you could drive a star destroyer through, or character motivations that defy belief, or settings that look pretty and are all about the vibes but don't actually hold up to scrutiny. And you know what? These other stories still manage to succeed at what they do. People enjoy them, sometimes love them, despite their flaws.

I wish I could turn off the voice in my head that points out what's wrong with my own work and tells me that it needs to be fixed or the whole thing is too fundamentally broken to bother with. I've always gotten the best responses from readers when I write unabashedly in my own voice, and yet even when I throw posts like this together, I'm so insecure about my own voice that I struggle to cut all the personality and character out, instead of just letting it flow naturally and sound like me. I'm writing this after bedtime so maybe it will be more successful at sounding like me than usual.

Everything I love has flaws, but I love it despite the flaws. And these so-called flaws aren't even actually problems at all in many cases - they're simply not priorities for the creator, or necessary for this particular piece of art. I think there's value in recognizing the strengths and weaknesses of the things you love, and taking away from that ways you can grow and do better as a creator yourself, but I think I'm far too preoccupied with what's wrong with my own work. I have received so much criticism over the years that it's all I hear and all I think when I look at my own works, and as a result I am paralyzed with all of my projects.

I've recently pulled some of my writing projects out of the deep freeze, because I'm getting a little more of my brain back as my health improves, but I am so scared of working on them and so very full of doubt.

Hadestown is a gorgeous work of art. It doesn't need to have answers to every question. It doesn't need to be able to withstand the kind of critique you get in workshop groups. It holds up incredibly well as what it is, and it does everything it needs to do, and that's good enough. More than good enough. It's amazing.

I need to internalize this. I hope someday I will.