Hah! real bite in that one, and makes me laugh too.
Question: when someone compliments a work by you and likes it more than you do, do you ever have to bite your tongue in order to just say "thank you" rather than correct them?
That is: is your impulse to to correct them and say "no it is really not all that - has the following flaws".
Bite your tongue till it bleeds. Kill the impulse to self-criticize for an audience. It only makes people feel you're either fishing for compliments or that you think they're stupid.
IOW, why, yes, I know just what you mean.
headdesk
Thanks. Yeah I know better than do it. That's why the tongue biting, But yeah, it helps to know that others go through it.
Oh, yes, the voices in my head are very active.
My biggest challenge as a writer. Even more than time management.
skips several hundred posts
Hello! Sorry to drop in like this - my getting-on-with-the-damn-book has sort of ground to a halt again, but this morning I suddenly had A Fabulous Idea For A Book. (I thought.) One that's surely not been done before.
Except, of course, it has. So a swift Google tells me.
But this is okay, right? I mean, just because I'm
not
actually being as utterly original as I thought...I mean, okay, so the one-sentence summary of my idea would apply to the other chick's books, but apparently the other chick is going for serious gothic romance, whereas I was going for more of a piss takey, melodrama-puncturing, Jane Austeny approach. So - so it's still worth having a crack at, right? To see whether it's fun and all that?
Yes. Right. It is. I'm going home now to see whether there is a story in my head, rather than just a gimmick. I think there might be.
crosses fingers.
Oh Fay, yes. Do it. Do it. You have such voice -- your story isn't going to sound like anyone else's story.
In under the wire for the Recipe challenge
Pancakes
A young couple, both tall and blonde, still trying to find out what makes a happy family. One man, convinced by her love he’s not a freak, one woman convinced love minus alcohol might equal happiness, even without the necessary pinch of cash. She’s made pancakes, one of the five meals she knows she can duplicate, and she brings them to the table still feeling like a wife in a play. Maybe she waits for a peck; maybe sometimes in those early days she got it. Monday morning quarterback, he picks at his plate. “You used too much oil,” he explains, in the tone of a boy used to favoring himself.
“I did not...they’re just fine, you fucking baby,” When did that stop sounding fond and indulgent? Whenever that was, that was when it was really over, whatever the papers said.
“Well, you know, with my stomach..” Everybody knew about his stomach. She heads him off, because every meal is still a commitment. She can’t just throw out a plate of food. “I know they’re fine,” she bluffs, “And to prove it to you, I’ll eat them myself.”
Later that night, as she heaves, she hears him laughing. Did he also bring her crackers and lemon-lime soda? Making a story is like cooking...the things you leave out change what you make.
Monday means new drabble topic!
Challenge #142 (recipes) is now closed.
Challenge #143, because I'm feeling feisty, is Get Over It. Use it as dialogue, use it as a general theme -- whatever you will.
As always, please feel free to suggest future topics.
And a reminder -- everyone is welcome to post their drabbles to the community LJ. You definitely aren't required to, by any means. But if you want to, then please do.