Check Your Head
| Meta | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Check Your Head |
| Creator: | Jane |
| Date(s): | February 2001 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | online here, Archived version |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Check Your Head is a 2001 essay posted to Citizens Against Bad Slash by Jane.
It has the summary: "Indicators that you have a big slash ego."
Introduction: "Does your head take up more of the room than your body? Is your neck straining from the weight of your gargantuan cranium? Are there people out there groaning inwardly every time you post something because they're sick to death of you and your huge fucking ego? Here are my indicators."
For additional context, see Timeline of Concrit & Feedback Meta.
From the Essay
You threaten to stop writing.
If I've seen it once, I've seen it a thousand times. An author will threaten to stop writing because she hasn't received enough feedback. Even worse, she'll take down her site to punish the unwashed masses who didn't praise her. If you ever consider doing this, log in to your list memberships and take a look at how many people are there. Figure that roughly one third of them are working on a story right now, and then you tell me why I should care if you stop writing.
You sign your e-mails "Author of...."
If you sign your e-mails with something like "Jane Doe, author of 'High and Mighty' and 'Time Waits For No One,'" you too may have a big slash ego. For one thing, many of the people you're corresponding with on lists have probably never read the stories you're referring to, and you signing your e-mails like that will not provide them with additional incentive. The slash world has thousands of authors who churn out tens of thousands of stories. Not everyone has read yours, no matter how good it was or how much people praised it. When you sign your e-mails like this, it sounds like you're writing your own book jacket. Even if you wrote "A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," you don't need to tell everyone.
You can't take criticism.
I once pointed out a missing word to an author, very nicely, under my regular slash writing identity. She said it was her story and she could do what she wanted with it, and basically that I was interrupting her creative process, and who did I think I was. I was just a fresh set of eyes that spotted a typo, not someone who was interrupting Rembrandt. Anne Rice insists on her books being published unedited, when almost every other successful author makes no such demand. What makes her so special? The same thing that makes you so special. A big fat ego.
You stop giving feedback.
Good writers get a lot of feedback, and so they should. But it's very easy to write a story, post it, wait for the feedback to come in and never read what anyone else posts to the list. You could be passing on the same feeling that you get when someone e-mails you feedback, but you don't. And why? Is it because you don't care? You don't have time? Everyone else has time to mail you feedback, and if you feel like your feedback well will never dry, even if you don't reciprocate, you too could have a huge slash ego.
You talk about your own writing ad nauseum.
You compare everything to something you've written. Every time someone gets you in a chat room, you just want to talk about what you're working on at the moment. I'm the first to admit that I am terrible for this. Therefore, I too could have a huge slash ego. A similar indicator is if you use phrases like "creative process" to describe your own work, or any phrase that makes it sound like you're painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
You assume everyone's heard of you.
Regardless of the fame you've achieved in another fandom, it doesn't mean we've heard of you or your big flaming ego.
You stop sounding modest.
Gone are any of the usual modest disclaimers like "Okay, this probably sucks, but at least I had fun with it," or "I don't know what I was thinking with this." I call these "modesty indicators," i.e. admittances that the author knows that she is not the greatest writer alive. Modesty indicators are great things, provided your site is not full of them, because then it just seems like you're fishing for compliments. But a little modesty goes a long way. Learn it. Be it.
You have an FAQ on your web site.
What are you, Microsoft? Please, please tell me what I need to know that's so important that it requires a list of frequently asked questions.
Your site looks like this.
If you feel like you're getting a big ego, here is my advice to you:
Write a piece of original fiction. If you don't usually write original fiction, that process alone will make you realize that you are not the golden writer you thought you were. Then take your original story to one of those critique lists, where authors who have written six novels and edited seven anthologies pick apart your grammar and sentence structure. Or just start talking in misc.writing about how you're a renowned fan fiction author. You'll leave there with your hair singed.