Hello Pia how are you? Not really an ask but more sending thanks and love for all of your writing. I've been a reader for over a year now and am still in awe of your skill (and speed!). I've been getting back into writing and struggling with feeling inadequate or like my stuff reads childishly, as a result I can barely get out 5k aha, but I'm working viewing it as a lifelong dedication to improvement. (On a side note: your work got my teenaged self to snap out of purity wank, forever grateful!)
Hi anon,
It is so awesome that you're getting back into writing!
Honestly, it is a sign of a kind of growth to notice the things you don't like in your writing, because if you feel it reads childishly (and I bet it doesn't all read like that, or most of it doesn't), that means you have skillsets already to aim towards. You can see how you want to get better. This is a skill!!! It's a more painful skill, and it's not a good one to listen to all the time, but it's a good skill to have.
When it feels dispiriting you can balance it out by intentionally looking for and writing down your strengths as well, and writing more of those. It might be only a few lines, or it might be all of the dialogue, or it might be the descriptions, but there will be strengths too!
Also 5k is impressive! Everyone writes differently. It took Mark Z Danielewski 10 years to write House of Leaves, and I love that book a very great deal. Quantity =/= quality, and you also have to remember I've been doing this in a pretty focused way for 10 years! Trust me, if you did this in a focused way for 10 years, you'd be in a different place with your output (which isn't obligation to do this for that long, just that...things take time <3 )
I'm glad you were able to snap out of the purity wank mindset anon, it's a tough one to be in, because it makes you feel like you're not safe in your own mind, and after a while it shuts down curiosity because it feels like everything you're interested in has to be examined just in case it's a moral trap or says something 'terrible' about you if you show interest in it. And that's really hard! It makes sense to me why so many antis kind of really lock into what they think and believe, because they've gotten so used to treating themselves with paranoia, how can they not treat others that way?
And that's a miserable way to live. It's the opposite of benefit of the doubt.
So being able to separate from that is incredible! And that's a tribute to your own curiosity in the world, and interest in exploring different ways of doing things, and I think that's really cool. :D