Deena, I...that's awful. {{Deena}}

I don't think I've mentioned it to anyone since then, either. He didn't do anything else, so I never knew what to think about the incident.

I wouldn't either. It's one of those things that is just with us, I think. Deena, thank you for sharing.
...
deb, you know, between your leg of Nilly!Tour, this drabble, and just your conversations about SF in general, the city ought to give you a percentage of its tourism budget. San Francisco is a city I've always wanted to visit. Since getting to know you, that feeling has only intensified. Scott went once, on business. I could have gone with him, and wanted to, so badly. Ben was a baby though, and since Scott was going to be at a conference, I envisioned myself coping all day, in a strange city, with a baby, (not to mention the flights to and fro) and decided that wasn't how I was going to do SF, once I finally got the chance.

{{{Deena}}}

Deena, that was incredibly powerful. The simplicity of the language really did it for me, in terms of capturing the perspective of a child at that age. And, also, {{Deena}}.

Susan, targeting those editors sounds like the most sensible thing to do, if you're going to enter contests. Picking contests that have looser judging/scoring criteria to follow is always best, too. Oh! And yeah, what you said about published authors liking your work better is definitely a good thing in my opinion, at least in this particular arena. Unpublished writers of all kinds have lots of wonderful advice to give and things to say about writing itself, but in this case I think the score sheet is a very easy temptation.

I love this drabble topic, yet I can't think what to fiocus on. Hmmm.

Hi, Deb! I love how much you love your city. It's the way I feel about NYC.

Thanks for the hugs, guys. It's nice to be able to write some of these things in a safe place. One of the things that has bothered me about my fiction writing is that, in my opinion, I mary-sue the characters because I'm uncomfortable with getting into the ugly. Being able to write this stuff will, I think, help with that.

This is only slightly tangentially related to what you posted, Deena.

I've known people who only write nice happy stuff, because they only want to think nice happy stuff. "Why must you write about death and pain? How can you not have a happy ending?" The idea that to write fictional accounts of murder, assault, rape, incest are iron-clad indications of preferences in one's own life.

I don't get that. I don't see why fiction must be candy-coated, or understand the brains that only ever have the bubbles and fairies thoughts.

Imo, if it's only ever happy, it's not real. I want what I write to be a gut-punch, for someone to wonder if it really happened, or know it could have, if the names were changed. To recognize it as part of the human experience.

I expect there's no doubt on which side I sit, being as how a good murder makes me smile all day. But I'm still a pretty fervent redemptionista too, and my sense of humor, I like to think, keeps me out of Lehane Country.ETA: Can you imagine that amusement park attraction? Lehane Country Safari. When you come in, an actor that looks like your dad kicks you in the gut. Then you take your beat-up ride through the streets of Southie dodging wife-beaters and pissed-off gangbangers, pausing for Hopeless Love, and the dismemberment in every third car. It's the crappiest place on earth!(But it hurts so good)

I think overly-happy and overly-grim fiction each make people feel better about real life -- in both cases, I think it's "see, life could be like that," for better or worse. To me they are just flip sides of the same coin. Although as a reader, I find the overly-happy just makes me dissatisfied.

As a writer, I constantly have to guard against a tendency to be too nice to my characters. You see, I like them! They're such lovable little figments! I want them to be happy, with sunshine and puppies! But it's not a story unless there are challenges and conflict, and happy endings are more satisfying if they're dearly bought, so I keep asking myself What Would Joss Whedon Do?

That said, in my own work I'm all about the happy ending. But that's just me.