So here's the question of the day.

[ayascythe]

Do you consider yourself a good writer?

I know this is a question that probably is looked at rather sceptical. I guess you could even say it's a small taboo among writers, because hey – who wants to look like a show-off saying their writing is oh-so fantastic? Right? Right.

However, if you want to tell me you've never asked yourself whether you are a good writer or not, then I clearly won't believe you. Everyone does that and everyone has some sort of opinion about the things they write. And I would love to hear yours.

After all, if you write fanfiction, you need to have the confidence to say: "I like what I wrote and I think it's good enough to be posted and read by others." Or – if you don't think like that – what makes you post your fics, anyway? What is your reasoning, what your motivation?

(I'm going to write about my self-opinion as well later on or tomorrow, but now I should be off learning about ten pages for Digital Media by heart. *blerch*)

Comments

[sweetestremedy.livejournal.com]

In one word? No.

Writing is for me a lot like drawing, except that I have less exercise. I know my drawing technique is rather good, but I don't consider myself an artist. Because I don't actually create art, I just copy things. Same goes for writing: I don't create plots or characters; I take what is there and make it my own.

On a more simple basis, I know I can write. It may not be good enough to be a professional, but compared to what else floats around the web, it's rather okay. So, I know I'm (relatively) good. However, that doesn't mean I think I'm good. Not when I struggle for every word, not when phrases that other people easily use come out clumsy. I also have phases where I can shape sentences the way I want them, and then there are days when everything goes wrong, sounds wrong.
So that's the one thing: Thinking too much, not getting things the way I want them. And the other, sadly, is that I measure myself by the comments I get, which aren't so much since I write rather off-mainstream stuff and I won't talk about this any further because I keep wailing about it all the time anyway ;)

ETA: Also, what makes an artist? For me, it is the need to create. And as sad as this sounds, I could very well get by without writing. It's not necessary for me like I believe it should be. On the other hand it's one of the few things that don't constantly make me ask "why am I doing it anyway? What do I get from it?" It's very relieving, in a way.

As for why I am posting, well, I don't have a clue. The thing is I started writing after I learned that others did it too, so maybe I just wanted to belong to this group,or maybe a story doesn't feel finished unless it's made public. But at the moment I'm not posting anything, not even what I wrote before the writer's block of doom (tm) kicked in. Why? I don't know. Probably the arrogant kid part in me that says "if I don't get any reaction on what I do, why keep sharing it?"
And this may be a forbidden question in fandom and has been cause of thousands of discussions and You Do Not Ask For Comments, but if I'm fully honest, I see that there's some truth in it.

[entchenmv.livejournal.com]

hm. I don't consider myself a really good writer. I'm... don't know. something between good and bad. I did write bad stories, but they never got posted. the stories I found good on my account - those do got posted.

I can be a good writer when I have good muses and good inspiration (and a good mood to write). but I lack the inspiration and the mood at the moment. so, not a good writer at the mom. -.-

ich springe immer so hin und her mit meinen Gedanken, dass ich manchmal selbst nicht mehr weiß, was ich eigentlich sagen wollte... -.-

[ninamalfoy]

Phew. Good question, that one. I can honestly say that I'm not a good writer. I know how to string words together, but then, like you said: everyone with a good education and some language proficiency knows how to do that. I remember that when I got sucked into the footballslash fandom, I had beta-ed some stories in the HP fandom so far, and felt comfortable doing so, and suggesting better wording or asking for more details here and there, things like that. I still like beta-ing. *smiles*

But then I got cajoled into writing something, and this something evolved into more, and it was like you said, this pride of having achieved something that people want to read. Notice that I said 'want', I did know what people liked to read, and it's no wonder that the Metzelly are rather popular and the Schweinski, too - they have way more than enough canon proof, they're cute together - what more do you need? So I think writing them wasn't as hard as it would have been for me had I written about an unknown pairing that no one had heard about so far.

So that probably makes me just a provider of stuff that people want, not really a writer who writes what s/he wants. Of course, these are also things that I want to read - I never write entirely for others - but I think I was lucky - unintentionally or not - that my muses fancied the popular pairings. I think if I were writing about, say, Kringe/Frei or someone else, not a lot of people would read these. (Ha! I would be lucky if even one person would read that. *g*) Or if I was to write in another fandom where there's only a small set of characters (SPN for example) where almost every possibility of throwing the boys together has been exhausted already, and gotten more and more perfect with every new try - I couldn't contribute anything at all to that.

So, basically, what I want to say: I know that I'm not a good writer by my standards (which are probably rather high, err...) and I write what people want, and this put together makes me an okay-ish writer in a small fandom with a vast array of characters. And, of course, I love comments - who doesn't, really? *wry grin*