island of my head

[soobun]

sorry i promise i'm Really Seriously going to be brief this time. but i've been sitting on this wip for like... the ENTIRE summer (actually more, back through may) and i've struggled and toiled with it and i finally needed to just let it go.

i think this fic was difficult (and took such a long time) to write because (not even touching on the personal aspects) it felt like i was trying to juggle a lot, without making it too long AND without making it too messy/overwrought/cringe, and trying to balance subtlety is one of the most frustrating parts about writing to me. bouncing back and forth between “it’s not that deep” and “actually maybe it is” and “is anyone even going to pick up on this” and “jesus christ it’s definitely not that deep” is at least 25% of my writing process.

but always when i’m dealing with stuff like this i’m just like… does it even MATTER. like i should be focusing on my pacing or dealing with my over-reliance on colons instead. or writing something fun and lighthearted for once. instead i was trying to:

- express the theme of Understanding The Other via each scene’s lighting and then obviously more directly, also a focus on the “weight” of feelings
- explore the mind-body problem via bodyswap, in multiple ways but most crucially in the realm of (a)sexuality
- contrast nico’s love for destiny and determinism against euijoo’s equally romantic but somewhat control-freak-esque cartesian view of free will
- express how much euijoo has been struggling trying to come to terms with his identity & feelings via nico’s very limited pov, since euijoo isn’t the type to say it outright, and then when he DOES say it to make sure it sounds realistic - plus, the inherent inadequacy of language when it comes to things like this
- balance nico’s hurt & love towards euijoo without making him too petulant or too pathetic or too understanding or too perfect
- ETC ETC ETC.

so.

my point is. i’m worried this fic feels messy because, well, not only are my feelings on the subject matter messy, but mainly i think i tried to do too much with it, and i’m not convinced i found a balance on how much of it came through. or if i overcorrected and made the ending too preachy or cheesy or perfectly wrapped up when the situation would likely be much more complicated. i don’t knowww :’| i’ve been sitting on it for this long and still i don’t know. alas. it is here now

lastly i will leave you with this bit from a ts eliot poem (east coker) that i really connected with while i was writing this, that i think ties in here:

Trying to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion.
[...]
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.