Yeah. It is hard, that's why I think a true friend is the one who'll confront me when I'm being stupid. That's why the whole Bitches kerfuffle thing confused me so much, because my experience with humoring is so...different from others' To me, that would mean that they didn't trust me enough to be honest, what she was asking... that we carefully consider every word. Doesn't mean I love being flamed, but empty praise is all too easy for me to get. Which is also hard when I send work out, am I talented, or Special?

My problem is always the wrestling with arrogance. I'm never sure if what I'm writing is interesting or just navel-gazing, because I'm writing for my own amusement and not anyone else's. Sure, I want other people to read me, but that comes from the same place as wanting someone to join me for lunch. I'll tell you a story, and then you tell me one. It's a social exercise in that I want to talk to people through the keyboard, but I feel incredibly self-conscious that maybe I'm just talking AT people. Like a blowhard in a bar.

But that's self-correcting, that worry. If you aren't interesting, people won't want to read you. An agent won't want to represent you, or compare your voice to Sarah Vowell's. A massive chunk of this conversation, going back a good long way, wouldn't be taking place. And since we do want to read you, and your agent does want to rep you and does compare your voice to Sarah Vowell's, there's the answer to that worry.

And BTW, navel-gazing is NOT intrinsically boring. It's only boring in the hands of an inept writer who can't distill enough to share.

The example I always think of is "Roger and Me". Because nobody ever said "You know what I'm in the mood for? A movie about the collapse of a town after the departure of the auto industry." But Michael Moore had a story he wanted to tell, so it ended up being, imo, a great film.

erika, that's it. And the inverse is also true, I think: someone who doesn't know how to tell a story, who can't distill in a way that raises echoes, can take the most compelling story on earth and turn it into Yawnapalooza 05.

Been there, read that.

Been there, read that.

Yep. And the New York Times probably reviewed it.

Teppy! Topic, ma'am? It's Monday.

I could suggest "wang"...

Hunger and thirst?

Persistence?

The human voice?

Bad Teppy! Bad!

Challenge #84 (lost in translation) is now closed.

Challenge #85 is pose (and, of course, any variation thereof -- poses, posing, poseurs, strike a pose, etc.)