{"id":825,"date":"2013-05-28T20:05:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-29T01:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/?p=825"},"modified":"2014-09-04T19:58:41","modified_gmt":"2014-09-05T00:58:41","slug":"the-benefits-of-slowly-dawning-horror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/?p=825","title":{"rendered":"The Benefits of Slowly Dawning Horror"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite the title, this isn’t another of my Lovecraftish posts.\u00a0 No, it’s one of those posts on the craft of writing everyone looks forward to so much.\u00a0 Specifically, it is about the realization about how hard it is to get halfway decent at writing and the appropriate pace for that realization.\u00a0 It seems like it takes most writers a few hundred thousand words of practice to get vaguely readable (I’m not talking about prodigies who can write well right out of the gate here – we can all just agree that we hate those people and move on).\u00a0 But if the realization of how much work you need to do hits you all at once like a werewolf leaping out of the bushes at you, well, chances are you’ll just quit writing and become a productive member of society.<\/p>\n

\"Not

Not Helpful<\/p><\/div>\n

No, it is best if the realization steals up on you slowly, something sensed but not seen because it is too formidable, too cyclopean, to fully comprehend.\u00a0 The nagging sense that you are missing something hideous and eldritch stalking your every step forces you to move faster, to get better at moving.\u00a0 Only years on, looking back on the naive stumbling of your earlier self, do you begin to comprehend the horror that was driving you on.<\/p>\n

\"Much

Much better<\/p><\/div>\n

Then, of course, as you see the thing that would have cracked your mind early on, you begin to wonder.\u00a0 How much of my own mediocrity have I yet to see?\u00a0 Certainly, now<\/em> I’m good enough.\u00a0 But didn’t I think that back then as well?<\/p>\n

But that way lies madness.<\/p>\n

Okay, that did get a bit Lovecraftomatic.\u00a0 What I’m trying to say is that without a certain awareness of how “meh” you are, you don’t have the motivation to improve – that awareness is the fuel for your writing abilities as they struggle to escape the gravity of mediocrity and attain the orbit of adequacy.\u00a0 But too much realization, too quickly, and the vessel of your abilities will rocket off into the sun of, um giving up-itude.\u00a0 So that’s what I’ve been thinking about lately.<\/p>\n

\"Metaphors

Metaphors are fun!<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite the title, this isn’t another of my Lovecraftish posts.\u00a0 No, it’s one of those posts on the craft of writing everyone looks forward to so much.\u00a0 Specifically, it is about the realization about how hard it is to get halfway decent at writing and the appropriate pace for that realization.\u00a0 It seems like it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-writing-things","category-metaphor"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}