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.

It can become a problem if it spreads its wings wide enough to prevent a writer from hearing. Two words: Anne Rice.

And yes, there's a distance between "honest" and "trashing it"; I was designed by nature to be nearly completely tactless, but I'm also a nurturer, and those two facets require some balancing, when I'm editing. Still, P-C was absolutely right, about the praise from someone whose usual style runs between pragmatic and damning with faint praise. Nic had huge pacing issues with Eyes in the Fire, and said so, while he was WIP editing. We went back and forth, I stuck to my guns in a couple of places, realised he was right, wrestled some more.

So when I left the completed manuscript for Plainsong on the table for him, said right, done, that's it, I'm going to bed, and got up the next morning to find a manuscript with three yellow post-its marking typos and a note atop the pile that simply said "Atta way to write, George" (an obscure George Brett baseball reference, for those who don't speak baseballese), it meant something.

And if he'd been blowing smoke up my ass all along, that response wouldn't have rung nearly as true.

t Disturbing the on-going conversations

There's exactly one thread that I tried to catch up on. Well, not really catch up, but skim instead of directly skip to the end, like I end up doing on most of the threads around here lately, due to a lack of time. And this skim-not-skip thread is this one. I threadsucked, a little at a time, read each and every drabble, mostly with a break after each one, to get back to, well, actual work, but also to absorb what I just got to read. I skimmed through most of all the other conversations, but I tried to catch up on each piece of original writing that anybody had posted here.

Thank you. You guys are incredibly talented, each with their own strengths and voice. It was like reading a big book of little pieces, that I could re-open whenever I wanted a little break, and I knew I would find something lovely here. Funny or thought-provoking or sad or all of the above. So, well, thank you.

t /relurking

Nilly, you know how many times an "disturbance'" from you has ever been anything other than supremely, divinely happy-making and nourishing?

Never.

You are the welcomest thing ever.

And by the way?

NILLY!