I disagree with the "artist always wrong" sentiment - I'm a huge fan of everything you write, you could write political commentary and I'd probably be like ah yes sure, but there's definitely an underlying intangible spark to the works that you later say flowed smoothly, (that college AU you wrote in a night is what I'm thinking of). There's this awesome, subtle magic in that.
Thank you very much, that’s very sweet of you to tell me.
I don’t mean it in a self-deprecating sense. I guess the best way of putting it is that I was at Coachella in 2012, and Gotye was performing (The guy who wrote Somebody That I Used To Know), and he played a few songs, and because there are a lot of overlapping bands at Coachella, people started leaving because they didn’t want to miss other acts. And so he huffed and said, “Why don’t we just get this out of the way so that we can move on!” and finally played Somebody That I Used To Know.
I have been to many concerts in my life. I have NEVER seen people act the way they did about this song. They sung along word for word, not just the chorus. Everybody was singing along, guys and girls, teenagers and jaded coachella goers who liked it before it was cool and then when it was over? They just abandoned his tent in droves. (he was a dick and played the worst set ever and I even liked this man’s album, so, not judging the runners). I have been to Coachella more than once and I’ve never seen people just hightail it out of there all ‘k, got what I came for, now I may depart’ like that, even to make another set.
Gotye clearly did not get why everybody liked that song. He wanted you there to listen to all of his other music. And sorry, hands down, he was fucking wrong. That is the best song that man will ever write. It’s like The Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony” - give up. You hit that high note too early, there is no topping this. And he had no freaking clue that what he’d done with that one song was so amazing.
So when I say the artist is always wrong, I don’t mean that I don’t like any of my writing (just Pearl Clutcher and Victory, omg, lol), but that I was totally blindsided by the response to other fics. Sometimes, I’m sitting there cackling, going muahahah, I have wrote the best fic ever, everybody will love this. And then wind up, at the end of the day grumpily hitting refresh, thinking ‘why does nobody love my masterpiece? don’t they realize this is pure genius?’ That’s not even the stuff that I super enjoyed writing necessarily, just that I think oh, I’ve found a niche! I have filled it. Everybody will love it. *clang*
So, now, ten years later, having reached the end of my anecdote, I’m struck by the original question. I am most curious. Dear writers who follow me, what do you think is your best work? What is your favorite work? (If those two things are different).
