The Audience

[rowens]

I don't know who the audience is. I've read this site enough to have an idea what people here might like or not like. But elsewhere it seems normal to constantly be using the phrase or the idea The Reader. I get messages and have people tell me in person about The Reader, as though it's a colony of equal-minded people who know exactly what they want to read before anything's been written.

---

I get a sense of an aura in me and around me, it has a certain color for each poem or story, and everything manifests out of it, all I have to think about is the words and the content. It comes and goes before I'm finished, but once it goes and doesn't come back it's hard to do anything else about it. It's like a portal opened and the poem or story came out, and then it's hard for me to judge whether it's any good or not, because whatever was influencing my involvement with it is gone.

---

And sometimes I meet someone who seems to radiate that aura at all times. So whenever I think of that person I can write on cue, that sense of manifesting poetry never stops. But then I'm stuck in the awkward position of being in the presence of a literal flesh and blood muse. And if the poetry is no good, that might mean I'm insane. So hence my constant conflict.

[CRNDLSM]

Who's your audience? Sometimes in a debate, your not convincing the other person, but whoever could be paying attention. I think in writing, the audience isn't necessarily who you want to read it, but an outcome you'd hope for from any audience. If your hope is for any reaction or none, youre considering your audience.

[rowens]

The Audience and The Reader are who say you're writing or not. The negative portion seems to grow larger as the positive portion grow larger. But the negative portion always had the headstart. I believe they were a strong mass before I was born, and the positive has only started over the last eight or nine years. And every few days I enrage one of the positive. So there's only a handful, if that. Every day I have to rewrite myself into existence. And I'm not even talking about the Greatest Group, the Indifferent and those that don't know I exist. And of course the negative portion of The Audience isn't an audience at all. ........ I'm thinking of these things because every few weeks a different person tells me that there's no audience for what I write. And these people seem to be able to influence other people that they're not my audience either, and all of this before I've even shown them what I've written. They just know somehow.

---

There is this dark spirit that eats up everything negative and digests it into my nervous system, and it takes everything positive and hides it in a void where I can't locate it when I need one of those burts of seretonin or whatever it is that makes you feel confident or capable. It's a hindrance, though a great motivation, because I can never be satisfied. I don't know if anyone else around here experiences everything as spiritual warfare. I wonder if these are outdated experiences or something held at bay for most by mood stabilizers or some other technology currently on the market.

[billy]

I don't know who the audience is. I've read this site enough to have an idea what people here might like or not like. But elsewhere it seems normal to constantly be using the phrase or the idea The Reader. I get messages and have people tell me in person about The Reader, as though it's a colony of equal-minded people who know exactly what they want to read before anything's been written.

---

i usually use the phrase i the reader and sometimes [the reader]. i use it to mean how i perceive others could see it as i see it. presumptuous i know but i'm guessing many will have a similar POV to me. i don't usually do the pre writing thing with {your audience} as such

---

I get a sense of an aura in me and around me, it has a certain color for each poem or story, and everything manifests out of it, all I have to think about is the words and the content. It comes and goes before I'm finished, but once it goes and doesn't come back it's hard to do anything else about it. It's like a portal opened and the poem or story came out, and then it's hard for me to judge whether it's any good or not, because whatever was influencing my involvement with it is gone.

---

we are who we are, what you see or feel is probably unique to you. most of us will have or feel something similar. [it going] is often i presume, a pre cursor to writer's block for many of us.

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And sometimes I meet someone who seems to radiate that aura at all times. So whenever I think of that person I can write on cue, that sense of manifesting poetry never stops. But then I'm stuck in the awkward position of being in the presence of a literal flesh and blood muse. And if the poetry is no good, that might mean I'm insane. So hence my constant conflict.

again, we've all [i'm presuming again] had that muse we write for or have written for. my partner got me writing poetry again. belive it or not, while we're all unique, we're all the same.

[rowens]

It seems to me, the muse is the opposite of the vampire. Where the vampire drains, the muse fills. But never fulfills. They come in dreams and setup labyrinths of different sorts, and when you finally get to the centre, they're already off designing another. And of course, unlike the vampire, who always seems to be around every corner and knocking at your door and even coming to other places where they assume you are, the muse becomes more and more elusive. They travel a lot, or work a lot. They're self-reliant, and are capable of being alone, which is good, since I like to be alone. And need to be to work on things. And finally, while the vampires are many and bisexual; the muse is only one. . . . And the muse demands that you have an audience, they have really no interest in whatever activities or career they themself inspire in you. Just as long as you're creating or working at something.

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And the last thing I want to say on this subject is that I've spent my life since the age of five mistaking the vampire for the muse. So the muse finds me perplexing and a bit comical.

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Oh, and since the muse is the only one that can disarm the dark spirit, my greatest fear is that if I don't keep my distance, I might become a vampire. So I become perplexingly elusive too.

[cloud]

Charles Bukowski said poetry is like a hot beer shit. It's something you just gotta get out, and there it is.

Do not enter your subconscious without a light, or without a means to take back something during your return to earth.
Otherwise it won't translate well for the reader. The void taketh, and there is always something to give, if you have the soul.

[rowens]

When everybody that was at the bar takes a shit, how can you tell who's who? There's nothing sub about my consciousness. But when I use subs, I get constipated.

[cloud]

When everybody that was at the bar takes a shit, how can you tell who's who? There's nothing sub about my consciousness. But when I use subs, I get constipated.

You can differentiate the shit by what they've ingested I suppose, if you're that interested.
It's like my mama used to say, "you can polish a turd, but in the end it's still shit."

[Seraphim]

I guess I’ve always just written for myself - there was something I needed to say so I said it. Yea, it’s nice when a poet one admires praises what I’ve done, but I really don’t need approval (I guess that’s the word). If I put my best into it, it meets my personal standards, and it says what I want, I’m ecstatic.

Then I’m done and off to something else.

[billy]

how do you become a better writer if all you do is say it meets my personal standards what happens if your standards are low? even if you have i standards how does one improve if they simply ignore critique? i'll go one step further, why are you in a poetry workshop if all you listen to is you?

[Seraphim]

how do you become a better writer if all you do is say it meets my personal standards what happens if your standards are low? even if you have i standards how does one improve if they simply ignore critique? i'll go one step further, why are you in a poetry workshop if all you listen to is you?

Writing for myself as an audience is one matter; learning to improve the craft is another. I have previously been a voracious work-shopper. It, and reading voraciously, is how I learned the craft and developed my standards. Work-shopping helps me develop further in the craft and permits me to raise my personal standards. Discussion permits me to look at something with a different POV.

Example: I've been looking through the catalog of poems which - at one time - I had considered 'finished'. Then spent two hours tightening one up, smoothing out the language. I've work-shopped pieces I've considered finished - perhaps I should say finished for that particular point in time - only to look at it completely different after hearing other peoples' comments. But as I revise it, I'm still writing it for me.

We either change or we stagnate. Work-shopping helps us change.