Oh, look who's back. How were the trips?

Well, I'm no longer puking my guts out, and neither is Nic, which is a good thing, since we put over 1000 miles on the fucking car this weekend.

Trip was fine. Bookstore ran out of copies of FFoSM and had to buy three of mine, which they got at a discount, and for which they paid cash. Nic called it the purest example of "will write for food" he'd ever seen; we took the money and had dinner with it.

I am not, however, particularly "back". Our house and lives will be in complete chaos for another week; the floors are being done and the house is the seventh level of hell right now.

This week's topics is opposites? Huh. Good topic. Will consider when awake and functional.

We actually have an empty chair in my twice-monthly writers group at the moment, since one of our writers, Ken Howard Wilan, had to move back to Boston and is now part of the online segment only.

I wish I had done that...actually talked to Hottie Poet Physics Guy...invited him to, uh, enjoy my criticism. He was so gorgeous, and wrote these beautiful poems about quarks.

Bookstore ran out of copies of FFoSM and had to buy three of mine, which they got at a discount, and for which they paid cash.

Now THAT is fucking fantastic!

Brynn, if you're still around, or around again, by all means, of course.

Been on this board in one form or another for almost six years, and this may be the first time I've ever been tagged. Certainly no more than second or third. Huh.

Bev, I've tagged you. Just not here.

Beverly, well, make it the 2nd or 3rd time! I haven't had the laughing out loud so much lately (which I attribute 1. to the bad weather in my town, which translates to bad moodiness and unfunniness in people 2. this wasteland of television season we are having) and your comment made me snort, so, I wasn't going to let it slip away if I could help it.

I like this drabble topic, alot. Perhaps I will overcome my drabble posting fear.

Aww. That's right. Welcome back, btw. You were missed.

I found my writers' groups through continuing ed classes at a local college, too. They both have been bastions at various times in my writing evolution, and even at the point where I'm producing little or nothing, now, they won't let me withdraw. And I admit, staying invested in critiquing and workshopping their work does keep the table open for business, and occasionally I do manage a drabble or a poem.

I'm coming to terms with the fact that my calling may be editorial rather than writerly, however. Now I just need not to be so damned bossy and autocratic when in workshop. "Lose that phrase, it's unnecessary and it wrecks your rhythm." "You have three 'the's in this stanza. Pick one." "You don't need a comma if you break the line there. Of course if you put the preposition at the beginning of the line then the line above it would end on a power word." "What? Don't look like I kicked your puppy, it's better this way, trust me." "keep up."

Oy.

Writers need editors only to the extent that editors control payment.

Having uttered my pithy thing, I depart.

Gus, have you read Anne Rice?

Yes, even though my last edit resembled nothing so much as a long-distance Pap test, I think in many ways it improved the piece. Although I prefer to be edited by people who enjoy what I do more than the last editor did.