I have, in fact, a sock journal I use in order to be anonymous, because well.
An actual sock, not just an anonymeme and a logout button? Hah. See, I don't think I could work that, because I would start to care about the sock's reputation and body of work. And I would get jealous, because my sock's readers wouldn't know how brilliant and witty I was being over on stulti's journal, and stulti's readers would never stand amazed and admiring of all my mad panty incineration skillz.
I think part of my problem is that lettered is enough of my identity now that it no longer feels removed enough
Exactly! I wonder if that hasn't happened to many of us on LJ, over the last decade. I've noticed that, in my neck of the woods, anyway, there's less silly, unedited, guiltless squee than there used to be. Explanations abound: (a) the squeekers are not on my flist, (b) my old friends are still squeeing as much as ever, I just notice less, because I'm not clicking on the Vampire Diaries cut tags, (c) there IS less squee, because somewhere in there we all got collectively exhausted by Hollywood's misogyny/racism/$fail, so we still watch, and make our fic, but the squee comes less easily, (d) we've grown embarrassed to squee, because we're aware of the $fail, and feel like squeeing about the good parts will be seen as being insufficiently stern about the bad, (e) we still have a cultural discomfort with excessive displays of emotion and/or enthusiasm, which was one of the points of being pseudonymous in the first place.
I caught myself thinking the other day, "I need a platform on which I can be completely ridiculous." And then I remembered how grateful everybody was in any classroom I've ever been in when somebody stuck up their hand and asked a "dumb" question. And I thought, these things are not unconnected. I mean to say, I think people like it when I post squee.
When I wrote Girls Are Great anonymously, I was fine with it just being porn, but when I decided I wanted to post it to my journal the meta elements just happened.
Hehehe. There is a time for getting off, and there is a time for analyzing it.
when I find myself writing things I'm embarrassed about, questioning that embarrassment will out in the text
This is a fabulous observation. I strongly suspect you're right -- it would happen to my texts, too. I'm an extremely Dear Readerish narrator to begin with; I almost always write either 3rd omniscient or 3rd limited from the POV of someone very self-aware, just so I can do stuff like that. Huh. Stulti, trust your brain. It's way ahead of you.
It's totally mindless in a way most things I write--even lots of porn I write!--can never be. I have no idea if that makes any sense at all.
It makes sense, I think. I just can't relate at all! I mean, I fantasize; I can daydream a fantasy that's way more interesting, creative, erotic, idiosyncratic than anything I've ever written down (again, huh) -- but the kind of no-holds-barred yarn you're talking about, I have no idea if I could. Not incapable-due-to-embarrassment, but rather I have no idea whether I'm capable of sitting at a keyboard and keeping my, I dunno, "literary brain"? turned off to that extent. NOW I'M REALLY CURIOUS.
maybe if you try being anonymous, you'll be able to get some of it out, and then find that you're fine owning up to it after all.
First I gotta write something. Then I can start worrying about how I'm going to post it. (There is, alas, a certain order to these things. ;)
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An actual sock, not just an anonymeme and a logout button? Hah. See, I don't think I could work that, because I would start to care about the sock's reputation and body of work. And I would get jealous, because my sock's readers wouldn't know how brilliant and witty I was being over on stulti's journal, and stulti's readers would never stand amazed and admiring of all my mad panty incineration skillz.
Exactly! I wonder if that hasn't happened to many of us on LJ, over the last decade. I've noticed that, in my neck of the woods, anyway, there's less silly, unedited, guiltless squee than there used to be. Explanations abound: (a) the squeekers are not on my flist, (b) my old friends are still squeeing as much as ever, I just notice less, because I'm not clicking on the Vampire Diaries cut tags, (c) there IS less squee, because somewhere in there we all got collectively exhausted by Hollywood's misogyny/racism/$fail, so we still watch, and make our fic, but the squee comes less easily, (d) we've grown embarrassed to squee, because we're aware of the $fail, and feel like squeeing about the good parts will be seen as being insufficiently stern about the bad, (e) we still have a cultural discomfort with excessive displays of emotion and/or enthusiasm, which was one of the points of being pseudonymous in the first place.
I caught myself thinking the other day, "I need a platform on which I can be completely ridiculous." And then I remembered how grateful everybody was in any classroom I've ever been in when somebody stuck up their hand and asked a "dumb" question. And I thought, these things are not unconnected. I mean to say, I think people like it when I post squee.
Hehehe. There is a time for getting off, and there is a time for analyzing it.
This is a fabulous observation. I strongly suspect you're right -- it would happen to my texts, too. I'm an extremely Dear Readerish narrator to begin with; I almost always write either 3rd omniscient or 3rd limited from the POV of someone very self-aware, just so I can do stuff like that. Huh. Stulti, trust your brain. It's way ahead of you.
It makes sense, I think. I just can't relate at all! I mean, I fantasize; I can daydream a fantasy that's way more interesting, creative, erotic, idiosyncratic than anything I've ever written down (again, huh) -- but the kind of no-holds-barred yarn you're talking about, I have no idea if I could. Not incapable-due-to-embarrassment, but rather I have no idea whether I'm capable of sitting at a keyboard and keeping my, I dunno, "literary brain"? turned off to that extent. NOW I'M REALLY CURIOUS.
First I gotta write something. Then I can start worrying about how I'm going to post it. (There is, alas, a certain order to these things. ;)