Bragging Rights
Jan. 14th, 2020 11:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
singedsunI just came back from seeing Legend on a traditional movie screen at the Alamo in KC and that movie (is not greatest ever but) still holds up. I love everything about it, Tim Curry as Darkness, Tom Cruises baby face and no-pants forest boy, Mia Sara's gorgeous princess. It's heavenly.
Driving home from that though and taking about these things that I think still hold up, these pieces of nostalgia that don't loose strength for me, made me think about this post. Mostly because the dude that introduced the movie to us didn't seem to care about it. He knew stats about the movie, but he made a joke about Lili being stupid and Tom Cruise writing this movie off and the other, better, cooler things Ridley Scott has done. Didn't let it harsh my cool movie buzz, because very few things in life could ruin Legend for me in any way. But it did finally remind me of something I'm good at.
I'm not great about bragging on myself overall, especially not too other people. Like, year end reviews are always hard to write. But I've learned that the best way to get myself to write with them is to start with a good opener. For the last six or seven years I've started my year end self-reviews with some variation on "I'm great", "What I do for the team (besides being awesome)" that kind of thing. It sets the mood, maybe provides a laugh if I include a meme. Over the years, I've learned to regularly and as honestly as possible say nice things about myself.
I have had great benefit in the power of positivity, gratitude and what is called the 'wonder woman pose' (the physicality of the hands on hips, legs apart, head held high pose). I say that to say while I'm not very good about picking specific things that I can do well and saying "look at me", I AM good at building myself and other people up. I've done emcee work before, telling the audience "I don't know what version of the movie we're seeing" and "I always thought the princess was kind of dumb" and "yeah, this is the size audience I expected for this movie", is not the way to enamor your audience to you. The movie is cool and your audience is special because they already understand it's value. Except, I know I'm good at doing that for myself and the people around me as often as I can.
All of that said. I think I'm pretty good judge of character, especially face-to-face with people. For me, it's kind of a survivorship quality, when you grow up with certain adults in your life, learning who you can be vulnerable with and who you have to guard against is pretty important at a young age.
Maybe that's why I feel so strongly about character piece writing when I do fanfiction. I like getting into characters heads and exploring specific scenes and why certain choices were or weren't made. I like the intimacy of those scenes too, you have to be able to pick apart the person to put together internal character dialogue that feels right. I might not get it every time, but I think it's probably what I write most consistently and hopefully other people agree it's good.
Honestly, character motivation and dialogue. Two things I'm good at in life and hopefully just as good at (or better) in writing.
I'm great at a fanmix, I love music in general - I'm fucking great at music trivia (especially 80s and 90s stuff). But I don't think fanmixes are just songs you threw against the wall and hoped they stuck, and they're not necessarily just the songs you wrote to while you wrote a thing. I treat them like albums, looking at themes and ideas that merge the music with it's art. If I'd known that like music supervisor/soundtrack person was a job I could've had when I was little... that's like a dream job for me.
I don't post a lot of single pieces of fanfiction here, but I did recently wrap-up my Yuletide and Critmas of 2019 posts. I'm pretty proud of all six of the pieces I wrote - three for each exchange. So not for nothing, but the Yuletide stuff were all new fandoms for me. And this was my first Critmas exchange. So not bad overall to write six pieces and be pretty happy with all six.
I've also learned in the last week, I'm apparently very good at activating the 'get shit done' mode of my brain when I need to be the adult in the room. Having never dealt with some of that before, it's been kind of eye-opening for me. But also good to know that if I need to be the person with the chill-vibes who can get things done quick and quiet, I sure can be.
Driving home from that though and taking about these things that I think still hold up, these pieces of nostalgia that don't loose strength for me, made me think about this post. Mostly because the dude that introduced the movie to us didn't seem to care about it. He knew stats about the movie, but he made a joke about Lili being stupid and Tom Cruise writing this movie off and the other, better, cooler things Ridley Scott has done. Didn't let it harsh my cool movie buzz, because very few things in life could ruin Legend for me in any way. But it did finally remind me of something I'm good at.
I'm not great about bragging on myself overall, especially not too other people. Like, year end reviews are always hard to write. But I've learned that the best way to get myself to write with them is to start with a good opener. For the last six or seven years I've started my year end self-reviews with some variation on "I'm great", "What I do for the team (besides being awesome)" that kind of thing. It sets the mood, maybe provides a laugh if I include a meme. Over the years, I've learned to regularly and as honestly as possible say nice things about myself.
I have had great benefit in the power of positivity, gratitude and what is called the 'wonder woman pose' (the physicality of the hands on hips, legs apart, head held high pose). I say that to say while I'm not very good about picking specific things that I can do well and saying "look at me", I AM good at building myself and other people up. I've done emcee work before, telling the audience "I don't know what version of the movie we're seeing" and "I always thought the princess was kind of dumb" and "yeah, this is the size audience I expected for this movie", is not the way to enamor your audience to you. The movie is cool and your audience is special because they already understand it's value. Except, I know I'm good at doing that for myself and the people around me as often as I can.
All of that said. I think I'm pretty good judge of character, especially face-to-face with people. For me, it's kind of a survivorship quality, when you grow up with certain adults in your life, learning who you can be vulnerable with and who you have to guard against is pretty important at a young age.
Maybe that's why I feel so strongly about character piece writing when I do fanfiction. I like getting into characters heads and exploring specific scenes and why certain choices were or weren't made. I like the intimacy of those scenes too, you have to be able to pick apart the person to put together internal character dialogue that feels right. I might not get it every time, but I think it's probably what I write most consistently and hopefully other people agree it's good.
Honestly, character motivation and dialogue. Two things I'm good at in life and hopefully just as good at (or better) in writing.
I'm great at a fanmix, I love music in general - I'm fucking great at music trivia (especially 80s and 90s stuff). But I don't think fanmixes are just songs you threw against the wall and hoped they stuck, and they're not necessarily just the songs you wrote to while you wrote a thing. I treat them like albums, looking at themes and ideas that merge the music with it's art. If I'd known that like music supervisor/soundtrack person was a job I could've had when I was little... that's like a dream job for me.
I don't post a lot of single pieces of fanfiction here, but I did recently wrap-up my Yuletide and Critmas of 2019 posts. I'm pretty proud of all six of the pieces I wrote - three for each exchange. So not for nothing, but the Yuletide stuff were all new fandoms for me. And this was my first Critmas exchange. So not bad overall to write six pieces and be pretty happy with all six.
I've also learned in the last week, I'm apparently very good at activating the 'get shit done' mode of my brain when I need to be the adult in the room. Having never dealt with some of that before, it's been kind of eye-opening for me. But also good to know that if I need to be the person with the chill-vibes who can get things done quick and quiet, I sure can be.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-16 03:33 am (UTC)