January 12, 2016

The daily battle with fear and conditioning

"Do this. Do this. Do this. Don't do this. You're not doing it right. Do it like this. I said, like this. Do this. Do this." The constant directing and scolding and reprimanding that starts early eradicates something in you, the rush of spontaneity, the impulse to have fun, to simply jump around and do nothing and be happy for no reason but being alive. The fear sets in. "I'm not doing this right. I'll be scolded. I better do a good job." Girls get the heavy end of the stick. When boys are allowed to "be boys" which is total bullshit, girls are taught to confirm, to be good girls, and to watch boys have fun as reward.

"Don't you dare come home dirty. Shame on you. Dirty as a boy. Go wash yourself." We can't get into fights. We can't tear or stain our clothes. We can't masturbate. God forbid we get caught. With boys it's inderstandable, "They have the urge." Which is another bullshit myth that we've been fed. Biologically a woman's libido is stronger, if we're reduced to talking about ourselves as animals. Which is yet another bullshit underneath the first bullshit. When we talk gender we reduce it to biology to hide behind bogus ideas.

March 5, 2015

The more intense the emotions, the better the writing

by Ksenia Anske

The amount of stuff I feel saturates me sometimes to the point of puking. I want to vomit it all out to be rid of it, or else it will suffocate me. Physically. A hand of anxiety will plant its meaty fingers on my chest and push down until I choke.

I used to ignore this and channel it inward and get sick, in the body and in the mind. I didn't understand where it was coming from. That's what everyone did, especially everyone in Russia. Our lovely cultural upbringing can be summarized thusly: hide it, hide it, hide it. Push it in. I got so good at this, it's difficult to resist the familiar urge.

January 8, 2015

To create you must protect yourself at all costs

by Ksenia Anske

Yesterday morning I have broken my new promise to myself. That promise was not to check anything in the morning, no email, no social media, nothing, just wake up and write. Why did I break it? Well, the reason was innocent enough. I thought, Hey, I have written a blog post, so I'll just quickly spread the love online, I'll quickly publish it so it can be sent out to my blog subscribers at 10 AM exactly as it's supposed to, I'll quickly tweet about it, very quickly, I won't even look at tweets, I will only—

Wrong.

WRONG. WRONG. WRONG.

December 21, 2014

A note on copyright

by Ksenia Anske

Could I be any dumber? Obviously. My darling editor started reading the second draft of CORNERS, which I have completed and sent off to her a few days ago, and the first question she asked me was, "Did you think about copyright?" And I replied, boisterously, with flippant facetiousness, "Nope!" And then it hit me in the gut. Why didn't I? Was I blind? We do things in life sometimes that leave us puzzled. The short story is, I will have to swap out 8 of the 25 mentioned books in CORNERS for some other ones, because they are not in public domain (the author has to be dead for 70 years before her/his work enters public domain). What does this mean? Well, it means several things.

May 27, 2014

Writers, don't listen to advice, it will kill you

by Ksenia Anske

When you're told how to write, don't listen. When you're told how to make your art, don't listen. To those who with good intentions attempt to steer you toward the right way of writing, turn deaf. Those who tell you that you have an odd plot, characters that can't possibly exist, descriptions that are ludicrous, flip a finger. Even to this blog, don't listen. To what I say, don't listen. Hole up, tell everyone to fuck off, and create, create, create. Create the way YOU want to. Why? Because YOU want to create this way. Because YOU say it's right. Because only YOU can be the judge of your own work, nobody else. YOU know when you produce shit or something good. YOU have the ability to distinguish between something that stinks and something that sings. Everything else is mote. Everyone else's advice is bad nostrum. Bad juju. Bad kaka.

Feel. Feel your words. When you write them, feel them. How do they feel to you? To YOU? Not to your uncle Joe, not to Sarah from your writer's group, not even to your readers. How does it feel to YOU? Does it satisfy YOU? Do YOU like it? If not, fix it. Only YOU can decide when to stop fixing it and to let go. Only YOU have this power, nobody else. Not the critics, not fellow writers, nobody. Nobody has this right. It's YOUR art.