Deb's friends are starting far enough down that they don't need her help. They need Creative Writing 101.

This, to me, makes me wonder how much, and how widely, they've read of other people.

You cannot write without reading, you really can't, you're just going to be clueless. My mother says that in recent years she's started being overwhelmed with students who haven't read novels that weren't assigned for classes. (Instead, what they know is movies.) And they want to start writing, and they want to be told they're brilliant, and what they produce drives her crazy.

Recent research proves this false. Nobody is tone deaf. Some people haven't been taught to listen, or learn to listen slowly. But anybody can be taught to distinguish musical tones, and to produce them him/herself. This makes me happy.

Really? I remember an NPR piece from not too long ago that was talking about people being really, truly tone deaf. It was rare, but it existed. They played tones that were very obviously different, and said that the study subjects couldn't distinguish them.

Maybe I'm being a bitch here. It's not that I don't want people to enjoy whatever turns them on, and to try to learn and improve. It's basically what I do when I skate. But I'd never presume to think I could ever dream of earning my living as a skater--my highest ambition is to compete in Adult Nationals, for the sheer joy of having made it that far. But I'm not Michelle Kwan. I'm not even Dancing Fork #3 in Beauty and the Beast On Ice. And while I have a decent amount of musical talent--a pretty good ear, a pleasant voice with a good range, an instinct for rhythm, etc.--I'm not good enough to deserve to be paid for it. The talent simply isn't there.

Well, we shall see. Their response was "Yikes! How about 1:00 tomorrow? Name the place."

Ms H, I think the person who's supposed to go on the journey in this one is the "stunningly beautiful chocolate factory worker who dreams of going to Holly wood and landing a starring role, but finds...." blah yada fishcakes.

Problem is, we don't even see her until chapter 6, and then she's alternately invisible, or a cross between something from an Archie comic circa 1958, and Sandra Dee.

I did useful things on my own behalf today, though, by way of getting the local B. Dalton's to short-order a mess of copies of "Weaver" in advance, and they were not only thrilled at my offer to sign them (made for purely selfish reasons, since autographed copies can't be returned), but will put them up front, window, big display. And tomorrow or Tuesday, I talk to Dave at our big local Borders, and set that up.

Tired now.

Liz, your mother is a wise woman, as are you. You honestly can't write unless you read.

Susan, I thought one could be tonedeaf as well, but I thought it was physical: something in either the alchemy of brain chemistry was off, or else a physical malformation - I've got tipped whatsises myself, the cochlea I think they're called, tiny little bones in the inner ear, and even thought I play a mess of instruments and sing, anything over a certain frequency range loses all semblance of harmonics to me, and becomes a deadly awful buzz.

This was something physiological, too. And, it was sufficiently rare that it probably doesn't explain 99% of the gratingly flat or sharp people one hears attempting to sing.

I can't even imagine why one would want to write if one doesn't read.

I can't even imagine why one would want to write if one doesn't read.

Bingo. Neither can I.

But I expect they do read, just either not novels, or not very good ones. The wife half of this team was a Hollywood soaps reporter for a few years.

Do let us know how it goes--I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

I'm in a writing group with six other people. Only one is published, though if you count my handful of newspaper articles from 1996 and my pending magazine article, it's two. The group originally formed through a community college writing class, so we're a random mix of styles and genres. There's one person who's so good he makes me love a type of story I'd normally shrug over (not the published one, BTW). Most of the others write well, though I hope J eventually steps a bit farther from personal experience, because the fantasy parts of her story are much more interesting than the real life of a business consultant parts, and sometimes I want to ask V if it would kill her, just once, to let an eensy bit of optimism creep in.

There is one person who I seriously doubt has what it takes. Her characters aren't clearly delineated, her dialogue doesn't sound like anything anyone would say, her style is awkward, and she has some problems with telling rather than showing. I haven't been so blunt as to tell her this, and I won't be--it would completely violate the rules of our group. And who am I, at this point? I'm just another unpublished novelist. Besides, I could be wrong. I like her, and I like the root idea behind her story, so I'd be thrilled if I was. And she's so new to this that even if I were 100% sure of my judgment, it'd be like telling some 6-year-old kid she'll not only never make the Olympic team, she won't even make it to Sectionals. At this stage, it's not the point. So, I try to help her by drawing out what's good and trying to gently correct what isn't.

Susan, I'm with you on the entire thing.

One enormous difference, though? These people have just sent out - get this - 238 query letters. I call that being pretty sure of themselves.

They had sent out twenty and they got back 18 with the "love the pitch and synopsis, send the first XX pages". On the basis of those requests - not waiting for feedback - they sent out a mass, and I do mean mass, mailing. And now they're panicking because, in the interim, they're hearing the feedback and the feedback aint good.

238? t boggles

I'm not sure I could find 238 legitimate publishers or agencies to query. I think I have stars by maybe a dozen of each in my Writer's Market.

238.

That's what he said.

And I have never, ever, ever trashed someone's work; if I don't like it due to a personal taste, I'll tell them that. Hell, I can't read most of Tad's because I have difficulty with epics; they make me cranky. But he still writes like an angel and it won't stop us doing a reading together.

But when I'm being paid, at their insistence, to tell them what's wrong?

They're going to hear precisely that. It would, in any case, be a huge disservice to do anything else. And I'm wondering if that isn't precisely what Pat Holt did.