Bless the internet and invisible friends in different time zones!

Yes, indeedy. You go sleep now.

Good heavens, what's everybody doing awake at this hour?

Joining my online crit group has been great, now that I've gotten past my usual initial response to groups of people... there's so much that you can't get from a book, that you need to be able to ask in specific terms and get a specific answer. And it's given me a chance to see how other people write and experience writing, which is fascinating. Their stories always seem so much more interesting than mine.

anything that happens regarding wordmagic is a lucky happenstance for me.

This is-- I know of so many people who just write, and by some accident of luck and insane organic talent, it's amazing, the language is technically brilliant, I'm sobbing with envy. And I just don't *get* that model at all. I don't do that. I'm conscious of every single word and how it affects the text as a whole. I can't turn that off, in fact. I'm in awe (and, to be honestly, a little involuntarily suspicious) of skilled writers who don't feel that.

(Sometimes-- most of the time, right now, but I'd prefer to believe that's more to do with my current state than who I am in general-- I am a better editor than I am writer. That's actually what I want to do with my life. Be an editor.)

(Every music teacher I've ever had has told me I need to stop thinking and that I overanalyze....)

good morning Ms. Havisham. I'm up because I'm being writerly.

So, edited successfully, I think. Shall I post it here? It's rather dauntingly long. RL, darling girl, if you want it in e-mail, it's yours.

RL, I write like Deb. That's part of what gave me the courage to do this.

But it's awe-making and very cool to me, to discover the myriad ways it can be done.

And being with other writers who automatically understand what it's like to have words assault you such that you have to stop and drop everything to get them out of your head and onto paper. Other people who are obsessed with pens and journals. Other people who understand the relentless pursuit of that one elusive word, or phrase, or what have you.

My whole thing is, I'm a storyteller. It's people, in a story;

Which is why I lurk in this thread, though I don't have nearly enough of that English thing to post anything in it.

Steph, I haven't posted 'with' you in so long, so I take advantage of my content-free post here to send you pain-free vibes, find-the-cause-quickly and cure-accordingly vibes follow, of course {{Teppy}}

Mmm.

Email it to me (Word doc is best) and I'll HTML it and host it for you.

Okay. Um, I sent it to Ple and Perkins and I have to send it to sj, because she's the one who asked for it, and to you because it's the dream, and I think you'll like it. I haven't gotten back all the responses, so do you want to hold off hosting until I've got it DONE done?

My whole thing is, I'm a storyteller. It's people, in a story;

jealousy

For me, it's people. And places. Getting a story to happen takes a great deal of medieval-style torture and mountain-moving. My characters are all lazy bums - they'd much rather just lay around talking endlessly.

'morning, Ms. H and Nilly and Rebecca and all.

RL, keep in mind, I started out life first as a musician, then as an actor, then as a director, as a lyricist the entire time, and finally began writing because Nic suggested that every single bit of creating I'd ever done was about telling the story. I was a mediocre actor, because I had to interpret other peoples' stories; telling my own? Far better at it.

And honestly, please don't be suspicious of me. It's just the way I write, is all, words and music together.