I got the BBF digest today and threw out an email. I probably shouldn't have but I saw red.

The whole "oh but if the writer is recced once but not the other times she's needed and then she finds her work criticized how harmful that can be" just got to me.

Plus I'm bitchy and pmsing.

But this whole "oh poor person, it will destroy them if someone says something about their work." How else do people expect to get better as writers? I mean really, if that's what they want, to get better as writers how else do they expect it to happen than to learn what their writing flaws are and fix them.

Do they think there is a magic writing fairy that comes along and slips the good stories under some writers pillows and not others? Sort of a reverse Tooth Fairy?

And the Good Writers, the BNF writers or whatever are treated special by the Magic Writing Fairy and the rest of them are gipped?

Do they think there is a magic writing fairy that comes along and slips the good stories under some writers pillows and not others? Sort of a reverse Tooth Fairy?

Where is she! Where is the rotten little tease?

The bitch sure as hell passed me over when I lost the last draft of my story.

And the Good Writers, the BNF writers or whatever are treated special by the Magic Writing Fairy and the rest of them are gipped?

Now that is a take on the whole Clique Wars that I hadn't come across before. It's not that there's a Conspiracy, it's that the better writers are unjustly gifted.

::snicker::

I think the rec system at BBF is remarkably sensible. Unless you've got a cadre of people who always rec each other's stuff, it guarantees that at least three people liked a piece.

Goes with the whole "everyone should be a winner" crap that keeps floating around in schools and other places.

I'm sorry but no not every can be a winner. Some people are better, some people have more talent, some people work much harder.

That's life. You learn to deal with it.

I would love to do things that required really, really good hand eye coordination but I can't. And that's life. And I don't demand that the whole damn world be rearranged so that it looks like I am good at it.

Now that is a take on the whole Clique Wars that I hadn't come across before. It's not that there's a Conspiracy, it's that the better writers are unjustly gifted.

I think the Person In Question would perhaps think of herself as the latter, which is why she must protect the poor wee less blessed. It's just some BNFs who give the rest of you bad names. Grr.

My current reply to the snarky "You must think you're special!" is a calm, "Yes, yes, I do." Everyone wants to be a winner, but they don't want anyone else to be a winner, not deep down.

You guys are making me want to join this list, just for the trainwreck of it all.

If you read Buffyverse, it's a good list. Most of the time.

It's also about 1,000 members strong.