OK - take a deep breath, step back from it. Smoke a cig or drink a coffee or whatever works, and then ask yourself, nice and simple: what am I trying to bring to life?

Ignore the piece as written, Just breathe in, breathe out, look at the theme - the BNF deal - and ask yourself the question.

What is this piece supposed to illuminate?

Once you have that, you've got the light in the tunnel. And for heavens sake, if you need to scream, ring me up. I listen real good sometimes.

She really does, Allyson. I'll send my cell number if you want it, too. But Deb's your woman right now, I think.

Yep. Check your email - and by the way, the essay? Isn't wooden. It's muddy in a few places, but only because you're overlapping on the connective tissue between the different things you're trying to do with it.

So of course it's fighting back, but honestly, you're trying to reel in a small trout, not a marlin. The areas that want fixing? They simply aren't that big, or that deep, or that hard.

It's all in the connective stuff. You may even want to split it out into two separate essays: one on the BNF deal and your experience at being one in a world the often perceives them as fakes, and then lead into the whichever strikes you as being where your light source is: sense of self coming out of your particular flavour of involvement in fandom would be my first guess, but I'm not you, and I could be totally wrong.

But I'm not wrong on the not-wood of the actual piece.

Allyson-- I wil get my comments to you (which may be entirely superfluous after Deb's) when I get home and have time to really read.

What is this piece supposed to illuminate?

I don't know. I never think of things that way.

I don't know. I never think of things that way.

OK - then let's parse it in a way that works for how you write. Because you write damned well indeed, and the way you do it is obviously producing good results.

Try it this way, maybe? You got to thinking about the BNF thing, and instead of looking at how you perceived the industry and fandom, you decided to look at how fandom saw you. Yes?

Because if that's the yes, that's what you're trying to illuminate. That's the light you're turning on the subject. And I do think that's likely it, because you posted that poll and dealt with the results, including the three or four from the spiteful needy no-lifes who resented you for it.

So, since you've already bled over it - maybe stick with that as the focus? Save the other half of what's being covered by this essay for another essay?

Basically, simplify, by sticking to the main thing this essay was about. And follow the secondary road - how fandom and getting involved kept you reasonably intact when you were fracturing - for another essay.

Does that make sense?

Does that make sense?

It does. And it's better taking it from that angle. I opened the story last night and had to close it and go to bed, as it was giving me a stomach ache. I really needed to sleep on it. I know it sounds terribly dramatic, but the story is truly bugging me as a piece of navel-gazey bullshit. I'd much rather post the anonymous posts and answer each of them as a piece.

Most people don't give a crap about my "connections," whatever they are. I'm fascinated by people who do give a crap, and are angry about it. I'm fascinated because I have a clear idea of the differences between friend and fan, and where those things overlap. It's interesting that the responses assume you can't be both things, a fan of someone's work, and a friend of the someone.

Curious boundaries. It's something I can run with.

Curious boundaries. It's something I can run with.

And there you go. Can I beta when it's done, please?

You make me feel less like a needy pain in the ass, deb. Thank you.

You make me feel less like a needy pain in the ass, deb.

Um - Allyson? You want to see a dictionary description of "needy pain in the ass", try me sending out chapter sections of the Kinkaid Chronicles to the thirty or so people on my active WIP list, begging for feedback.

You are not being a needy pain in the ass. You're being a writer. The need for feedback and input, that's a humongous part of what we do.

Unless you're someone like Anne Rice, in which case you just write crap, refuse to let anyone touch it, and take out ads in "Variety".