But I'm so damn frustrated I want to cry

This is why you need to let the book rest for at least a week without looking at it or reading it. You've got no distance at this point.

Read for fun, do some of the other things you wanted to do, and try not to even think about it. When you come back to it after a few days, I think you'll be surprised that it does not, in fact, suck.

Amy's right, Susan. Step away from the manuscript.

Well, the only thing I've been doing related to the manuscript is turning in my regular ten pages to both my weekly critique groups. It's just that the online group happens to be at one of the key turning points of the story, and so when they came up with big picture problems about characterization and motivation instead of just pointing out awkward wording or reminding me that I occasionally need to provide some action and emotion to reinforce my dialogue, it freaked me out.

The Monday group tomorrow should be fine--they're on a bridging scene, one that's necessary to the story in that otherwise the transition between what goes before and what comes after would be hella abrupt, and one that has some useful information and foreshadowing woven in, but it just doesn't have the same level of story significance or emotional investment from me.

But I promise that's all I'll look at until next weekend.

Billy Idol's playing in Golden Gate Park next weekend, about eight minutes from my house.

Well, invite him to your house, then knock him on the head, and I can be there in two hours.

we hates her, my preciousss, we hates her ... sss ....

Well, invite him to your house, then knock him on the head, and I can be there in two hours.

I thought I might wander over and see if I know any of the gate guys, truth to tell. If I do - if any are the old crew from BGP and FM Productions - I can slither backstage.

But even money on the crew being a bunch of newbies. Feh. Ah well.

Susan, is a CP a Critique Partner?

Also, is it possible they're just at a section of the book where they don't yet have the big picture--that your characters are more complex than their assumptions?

I have another column up at Romancing the Blog today. It's reader-centric this time, though.

My brother finally knows I really have a book, because he was looking over my shoulder as I edited over the weekend. I don't talk about it a lot because when I was in college I thought I was Maupin for five minutes and tried to write one, and people that were my posse then still ask about it and I never finished(partly because in lieu of structure, it has more jump-cuts than a Homicide episode...I just wasn't equal to that at twenty.) But I thought I was and hyped it to everyone and felt horrible when it came apart and I abandoned it. Part of it is, of course, that he doesn't listen when I talk, but even he could not ignore the page counter.

Susan, is a CP a Critique Partner?

Yes.

Also, is it possible they're just at a section of the book where they don't yet have the big picture--that your characters are more complex than their assumptions?

That may be part of it, but I don't think it's to do with how far along they are in the book so much as my making some less-than-ideal POV choices. I've got two big sections in Jack's POV that I think I'm going to have to recast into Anna's. Her view of Sebastian is more nuanced--after all, she was married to him for two years, while Jack met him for all of five minutes. She can provide history and perspective through a few lines of introspection here and there, while Jack is just going to hate him for making the woman he loves miserable. Also, at this point in the story, Anna is trying to seduce Jack and not being at all subtle about it. I thought it would be obvious her lack of subtlety came from inexperience and desperation, but somehow it's not reading that way despite clues dropped in earlier scenes (though there part of the problem may be reading it ten pages per week--it's easy to forget clues you read 3 weeks ago that you'd remember if you'd read them that morning on the bus). Hopefully getting into her head will fix the problem.

Woot! FedEx just delivered what had better be box one of my authors copies.

Matty Groves. Shiny!