And I think I wasn't clear, Susan-- questions are great. Defenses are what I see as a waste of group time. It's the difference beween explaining and exploring. The first doesn't go over any new ground or lead to discoveries and the second one does.

Gotcha.

This should give us great stuff to discuss at our first meeting next month. Thanks, y'all.

Robin, I hope your profile addy's an active one. You have mail there.

I would also note that there's a difference between coming to a critique with the whole idea worked out in your head, but with problems in how to implement the idea, and coming to a critique with ideas still jumbled up.

The former wants questions like, "How can I make that clearer?" while the latter warrants a full-blown "But wait, I thought I was saying this other thing entirely. Let us now talk out what the hell I meant by that." Which is not to say the former can't turn into the latter, but at base, they're different kinds of questions. I don't know many people who will refuse to admit that their implementation of an idea needs work; but I know plenty who can't admit it if their ideas need work.

(I find it refreshing and sometimes hilarious when somebody else turns out to know what I am saying better than I do myself. In that appalling, tucked-skirt-into-pantyhose way, but, you know.)

Which is not to say the former can't turn into the latter, but at base, they're different kinds of questions.

Yes, this. This a thousand times over, and then some. Different questions, different needs and, vitally important, with different impacts on the work.

(deep breath)

This is a bit longer than drabble length, and I'm not cutting a word. As some people know, I'm in the process of recovering memories of a certain time period. I hadn't actually forgotten about this, except for one thing; I'd forgotten I was crying at the time.

Contents of a Kitchen Floor

Two bottles of Seagrams whiskey, one empty, the other with an inch of liquid left.

Courvoisier, I'm counting three bottles, sticky with depletion.

The cats' dishes, empty.

A scattered pile of mail, probably pushed from the table by Pig or Fluff jumping away from their human, as he was fighting with his insane wife or reaching for one of the bottles I'm now bending to dispose of from my wheelchair. Included; one confirmation of the next dialysis appointment for the damaged man who emptied all these bottles into his damaged body.

Oh, and one damaged man, unconscious amid the rubble, trusting me to be there when he wakes up.

And me in my wheelchair, tears of love and longing sitting angry behind my eyes, wondering how to save him.

Ouch, Deb...stings.

I just hit page 100 on the wip! In theory, I'm a quarter of the way done, though more than likely my rough draft will end up well over my desired 400 pages/100K words and I'll have to find a way to cut it. But still. It's a number. It's round. I've been staying on track this year, for the most part. I'm happy.

t pats self on back

Go, Susan! I haven't tried for anything more than a couple pages, double-spaced, at that.

Oh, you better believe these are doublespaced, too. And Courier 12, which takes up a lot of space.

The truly crazy part is now that I'm used to manuscript format I prefer the look of Courier to Times New Roman. It's crisp and it photocopies well. You get into all kinds of debates about which one is better and which editors prefer and so on, but I think I'm the only person who actually likes the way Courier looks.

Susan, you are far from the only one.