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!

t waves at Nilly

I still think I'm better off either not letting DH read my stuff again until it's sold or until we've come to some kind of better accommodation about what kind of feedback I'm looking for from him in particular. Because I think I want a deeper kind of validation from him than from readers I haven't made a lifetime commitment to. It's not so much that I want him to think my writing is perfect is that I want him to share some of the excitement and enthusiam I feel about my work--not to think I'm a perfect writer, but to understand and share some of what makes me love my stories. But I'm the excitable, enthusiastic half of this marriage, so it just doesn't work that way.

Susan, don't misunderstand me - there are going to be things you want from him emotionally, and if he isn't structured emotionally to provide them, I'm in total agreement. Because part of giving your creativity all the weapons you can find is identifying what feeds it and what actively hinders it. I don't thrive on bullying myself, and it took me a book or three to tell the difference between what was useful to me and what was harmful, and to know when to shut my ego in a box and absorb.

Still, my point about ego as a defense mechanism - a potential hindrance, rather than a help - is something to keep in mind and keep an eye on. That's especially true for someone like you, because you've described yourself as very competitive. Don't lose sight of the fact that the "prize" in this particular competition isn't the awestruck admiration of the crowd, it's the creation of something.

In a very real sense, this isn't "look what I can do! Look what I did!" It's closer to "I'm just the messenger."

Hi, Nilly!

Susan, it's such a difficult balance. Until Stephen and I talked it about, I always got, "It's good, honey." One, he doesn't read a lot of fiction, and what he reads doesn't interest me at all (i.e. espionage stuff, classics like The Brothers Karamazov), and two, he doesn't write. He doesn't..."get" what it's like to write, I think. He's learned, over the years, that it's a much more personal and emotionally freighted thing than, say, him cooking a meal (for him, at least), but it took awhile.

In the beginning, I think he really believed that the simple validation of those words was what I needed, and I learned that I had to ask him specifically for the kind of feedback I wanted: Does this scene seem believeable? Did you understand the shift in time? And actually he's now a huge help when it comes to brainstorming plot problems.

One thing I know I should probably work out in therapy someday is that praise or validation from people who love me in a really deep personal way (Stephen, my mom) doesn't hold a lot of weight with me. I love them for it, and I love that they're my cheerleaders, but it "feels" to me like they're going to love everything I do, even if it's a big rotting pile of garbage, because they love me, and they're not at all objective. So when I get specific with them, it's easier to get meaningful (for me) feedback from them.

That's especially true for someone like you, because you've described yourself as very competitive. Don't lose sight of the fact that the "prize" in this particular competition isn't the awestruck admiration of the crowd, it's the creation of something.

But it's so fun when people are impressed with your work and say so! And while I do love to compete, it's just as much about striving for excellence as winning. However, I need to think a little more carefully about how I keep score--I mean, I probably shouldn't have made a certain author who shall remain nameless my main measuring stick for success just because of a certain superficial similarity in our backgrounds. And I really shouldn't feel like I must sell my first book just because she sold hers, or else I've somehow lost honor. (I tend to sound like I'm channeling Worf when I'm at my most competitive.)

I asked DH some probing questions about the scenes, and it turned out he liked and "got" them more than I thought he had based on his original comments, and that he had some interesting insights on which one he liked best and why. So I was all, "Why didn't you say that in the first place?" but we agreed it was better if he waits to read my stuff until I've sold it because the particular intersection of who he is as a reader, who I am as a writer, and our differing levels of enthusiasm for things in general isn't doing us any favors.