More on the Museless, Edited
[This entry has been edited from the original rant.]
Yes, I’m uninterested in engaging in a discussion with people who seem incapable of separating personal opinion from personal insult, or who have related difficulties distinguishing between what I’ve actually said and what they think I’ve said, or who think I’m capable of hobbling the English language singlehandedly because I prefer strong words to weak ones. I’m willing to do it in zendom (much as it annoys Christine) but not here. See later entries for why. To the end of not discussing, I’ve edited this entry down to a more average episode of Jemima’s Blog.
I blamed Lori, rebel-in-training, for saying that museful writing was better than museless writing. I never said it. (Watch a future muse entry for my opinion on that issue.) She says she never said it that way either, which means the people who read it that way were hallucinating.
More on colloquialisms:
I find them unclear. As a writer, I have to choose between strong words and weak words. Fun and happy are weak words, ones I’d be very cautious of putting into the mouth of a character (only partly because most of my writing is set in the future where current colloquialisms stand out as bad writing) and equally cautious of using in a discussion, where they lead to confusion.
The aside:
I’m not here to encourage good writing. I don’t know where anyone got that idea. This is my blog, and I’m here to express my opinions, and, when the muse strikes, to write fanfic. The rest of you can save fandom from itself - I’ve done my time.
On the sweating and the bleeding:
Note that I have never and will never claim that sweating and bleeding for your writing is worthwhile, sane, productive, or any other such thing. Since I dislike most mainstream literature, my exposure to the hurt me school of writing has been through fanfic, where I’ve seen a fraction of writers boast of having to cut each word out of their flesh, or at least sweat or bleed for their writing. It still surprises me when people say that, and that attitude is as alien to the muse as is writing for fun.
As for what is native to the muse, see the later muse entries.