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.

else I've somehow lost honor. (I tend to sound like I'm channeling Worf when I'm at my most competitive.)

That reminds me of a panel in this.

And while I do love to compete, it's just as much about striving for excellence as winning.

But who decides the excellence? Are you putting all your personal sense of validation into what other people tell you is excellent? And excellence, quality, those terms are completely subjective.

I'm trying to understand this, since it's basically 180 from who I am and the place where my writing comes from. Gamma girl, c'est moi, if I wanted to use that terminology; I just do what I do and in the end, the satisfaction or dissatisfaction is my own.

And yes, of course it's fun to have people enjoy the stuff; that's the second destination, giving people things they can escape into or wonder about or just a road they can travel down. But in the end, it's the story I tell, and how I tell it. And those judgments - quality, excellence (a term I distrust anyway, so it doesn't really apply in my world, but lacking a better one) - are going to be completely subjective.

It's good to know what your measuring spoons are.

edit: My other head-scratch here is, compete with who? Other writers? If you're feeling a sense of competition with three other writers up for the Nobel Prize in literature, OK, I can see that. But competition, to me, simply means "HA-ha, I'm the BEST!" Which means I'd be saying someone was not as good as I am.

And again, like beauty, subjective.

I don't get it.

Deb, what you've just said about ego-as-defense is probably the best advice I have ever received (speaking only about my own stuff, not Susan's situation). I am not competitive. In fact competition scares me off. But I'm personally prideful (I hope that distinction makes sense). And I think ego-as-defense is probably my biggest issue when it comes to anything creative, but particularly writing. Wow. Just. Wow. Thank you. I've got to bookmark those posts.