Is that October, Victor?

edited: never mind, I went back and found out it is January.

Victor, kewl.

I have a piece wandering around in my head. I think I need to go write the damned thing.

I don't know what this is. I just know it wanted out.

A Fragmented Picture of a Moment in Time

Fragment: a pile of paper on my desk, the phone ringing. You've called because you're alone at home, you're bored, you're missing me. I'm the only one you want to talk to. No one else will do.

Corner of a picture: moment of perfection stretching out to an hour of happiness. I forget myself, laughing, listening, chivvying, beaming support and love. The entire office, on this chilly September day in a San Francisco publishing house, seems drenched in a mantilla of bright sun-dappled joy.

Wholeness: You ask me, in that peaceful voice, that cocoon of momentary contentment - Do you remember when I rang you up from London? The night the lights went out and I couldn't find my way to the studio? The night someone told me, you can't get there from here, and I rang you up, wanting to find my way home to California?

Completion: my own voice, answering, yes, oh love, yes, I remember. You asked me to keep the light on and I kept it on, I kept it burning, it was for you, always for you -

Torn across: I didn't say that. I wanted to say that, it was in my mind and in my heart, but suddenly I remembered where I was, the lace-bright office suddenly full of people standing too close, making excuses, wanting to hear me talk to my rock star. Nice people but they're too present, suddenly, they're avid, they're eyes and anticipation for something they want to share and can't have and don't deserve

and the room darkens

and I'm suddenly aware

and I laugh, and say something about work, I'll be home around half six, give dinner some thought, I'll cook it.

Your voice deflates, subtle, but I know it, I know it as I know myself and I gave the wrong answer.

Fragment: All the history. All my life. Everything and nothing.

edited: never mind, I went back and found out it is January.

A-yup. And Deb: quite nice.

Thanks. So is the memory, mostly. Mostly.

Small things, little screw-ups, moments I wish I could go back and reclaim.

Ah. Well, yours is certainly light years better than his, but I am very fierce about first person; it's very hard to do properly, very difficult to put on that character and speak through them without putting yourself into it, your own issues, your own joys and sorrows. That can be done properly, or it can be done messily. It's one of the trickiest balancing acts in writing fiction.

If I'd known this before, I'd have been too askeert to let Deb beta my first novel, which is in first person, now new and improved with alternating hero and heroine narration!

I let DH beta my entries for the First Kiss contest. I swear I'm not letting him read my fiction again until it's published--not because he isn't a wonderful and loving husband who believes in my talent, because he is. It's just that he's damn hard to wow about anything. And I'm used to being able to wow people. Both the pieces I gave him have been polished and repolished. One got actual applause in my writers group, along with assorted raves from various people who in one way or another ought to be qualified judges. The other is newer and hasn't been read by as many people, but them that's read it have liked it, and I think it's the best all-around scene I've ever written. So far. (And I know I'm not necessarily the best judge of my own work.)

So, he thinks they're all right, for the most part. But I need an editor, he says. No "wows," no "my wife is even more amazing and brilliant than I already thought." Which of course has me in self-doubt land, wondering if I'm really the Triple-A star who could get called up to the show at any time that I like to think I am. Maybe I'm still a raw, awkward newbie playing short-season with the Everett AquaSox.

But, dammit, one of these days I'm going to give him something to read, be it a magazine article, a novel, a frickin' email, or whatever, and he is going to say, "Wow. My God, my wife is brilliant."

But, dammit, one of these days I'm going to give him something to read, be it a magazine article, a novel, a frickin' email, or whatever, and he is going to say, "Wow. My God, my wife is brilliant."

And see, Susan, the wonderful thing about that is you'll know he really means it, because he's been honest this whole time.

Yeah, but I just wish he didn't have me doubting all the people who already think I'm pretty brilliant, and wondering if these entries really are good enough to have a shot at finalling and getting my work in front of an editor, etc. I just want to give them one more careful read, print 'em out, and mail 'em in on Monday.

If I'd known this before, I'd have been too askeert to let Deb beta my first novel, which is in first person, now new and improved with alternating hero and heroine narration!

It actually works very nicely with the alternating first person - that breaks the voice and POV into something different entirely.

I am all about Nic as a nice pragmatic editor. Lillian Hellman talked about that, in (I think) "An Unfinished Woman"; she'd give Hammett her stuff and he was brutal about it. She was prickly and young and it nearly made her nuts, until, she said, she suddenly understood the bare fact: what he said was useful to her.

So it's not about wowing him, or being thought brilliant - it's about the work being the best you can get done, you as yourself. Ego is a defense mechanism: it learns nothing, absorbs nothing. It defends and repels.

Want to be a writer, put the ego on a shelf. It won't help you, because it can't.

And trust me on this, because I have never not wowed people, not ever, not once in my life. And my superwomanness, when it comes to whatever I make, is about as relative as dust and about as insubstantial as a ray of moonlight. That stuff doesn't matter. It can only hinder.

Not easy, but true. The creation is the stuff that matters. Give it every weapon you can.

Well, I think there are gradations--insofar as ego is involved when I read something I've written and think, "Wow, I really AM good, go me!" or enjoy getting praise for my writing because it's so fun to be good at something and be acknowledged for it, I don't see it as a problem.

And I'm not sure DH is the best beta for what I write--the man's never read a romance novel in his life, and doesn't read a lot of historical fiction in general. He's ruthless, and that's probably good for me, but I felt like some of his criticism came out of not grasping the context and framework I was working with.

And, there's part of me that thinks that as my husband his job is to be my biggest cheerleader, while he seems to think I'm arrogant enough about my writing without any help from him. Which is probably true, but, dammit, it really IS possible to be both arrogant and insecure, and I wish he'd give my insecure side equal time.