First law of crits: you don't have to do what your critter tells you. :)

Here, the implication was supposed to be that his protests were for form's sake more than anything, and that she's been a trader long enough to know the value of the trade.

Perfectly valid implication. I just didn't have much ground to deduce it from - don't recall it being mentioned anywhere that she knew the girl wasn't worth the asking price (has she dealt in slaves before, aside from being one?), or that accusations of cheating weren't taken seriously in that place/time.

It's the place/time. Or, more specifically, that particular place. I'm going to mull and see what I can do to make that clearer without making it look like I scribbled on calligraphy with a sharpie. I tend to be panicky/heavy-handed with edits.

Well, I gave in and put it up. I have the right to take it down again at any time, so I may as well. And Internet? Fast.

The Best Lack All Conviction: the "Infante's Inferno" Columns and Other Writings

Victor, the page is in favorites and the price is in the budget. I won't be your first purchaser, but I will purchase it.

I just wrote my first-ever explicit sex scene. I think it's more R than NC17, but still. It wasn't really difficult to write, but I have a sneaking suspicion it sucks and I'm the only person in the world who'd think it's sexy.

In a few days I might post it here and/or plead for volunteers to take a look at it. But I think I need to let it, and my brain, rest for a bit first.

I'd be willing, Susan.

I have a sneaking suspicion it sucks

It's porn , girl, it's supposed... oh, wait. :)

I left that one in on purpose after editing out a few accidental single entendres. :)

A very good writerly friend once told me "There are no new stories. Love. Quest. Revenge. Variations thereof. Pick one. "

I personally agree with this concept. The themes are old as hominds and emotion, it's the rest of the stage that changes.

When you say you can't find hte story, what precisely do you mean? Your erudite characters just find themselves together? Is "story" something different from "plot"? I rarely worry about a theme, but I can always find a reason for a character to get from point A to point B, the most melodramatic reason possible, hopefully. I can create an entire back story just from seeing two people glaring at each in the supermarket. Two or three, actually, ranging from "How dare he buy that brand of cat food again, he knows it gives little Froo-Froo gas" to "I know she's been fooling around with my brother, I just know it."

The people in my head are ever so much more interesting than the real ones.

Quickie in, quickie out, because Nic needs the big computer.

But the combination of narrating in first person and then jumping out to the distance of describing "the hand" and "the narrator

See, that worked for me, because the response it evoked was completely visceral; just the opposite of words-on-a-page, because the author wasn't in my way. it was just the girls. Your emotional whoa-baby may definitely vary on these.

Victor, marked. Will go look when I can actually sit down and read without being snorted on.

Is "story" something different from "plot"?

For me? Always and forever. Plot is mechanics and I honestly don't care about it; it's simply nuts and bolts in the story for me. But again, massive differences in mileage to be expected.

Back when I can. Damn damn.

Bookmarked, Victor. Can we review for you, if you get to vet it? And yay! I hope this goes into print--20 years along, it's being taught as representative of the era--the Catcher in the Rye of the early 21st century.

connie, I can do snippets of conversation. I have a very good one-page story that I've always thought of as complete. But other things, I feel ought to lead somewhere, not just end, unresolved, like bits of conversation overheard in passing.

For my (now dead) novel I had a destination in mind, an outline cast in stone of an ending, and no clear way to get there. Writing it was exhilarating, exhausting, frustrating. The characters would hare off down blind alleys and false trails and I'd have to backtrack. Or sometimes they'd find a wonderful side trip with details I'd never expected or imagined. I "plotted" nothing except certain points that had to happen, somewhere between "Once upon a time" and "thereafter."

I want that ride again. I want a destination, and the fear that I won't discover that again has begun to give way to certainty.