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".

Well, she has taken out an ad in Variety--or helped to do one.

...just not for herself or her own stuff. I'd like to beta, too, Allyson, if you think I'd be of any help.

Heh. But not to bitch at the publishing power that be for daring to want to edit her perfect work.

Sorry. Anne Rice makes me want to grab some semi-automatic ordinance and wander up into a clock tower somewhere. And Allyson can write rings around Anne Rice.

All of us can. To get West Baltimore about it, Anne Rice is a punkassed bitch. She ain't shit. But she could buy and sell us...no, I'm not bitter. Kind of picturing us typing in a dark alley, while I say stuff like "Where's your publicist now? I don't see her here. Just you and me."