Get published, read someone talk about how upsetting it is that she's been working very hard for a very long time and all these other folks (who aren't b.org, but still, it's just "other") keep getting book deals...

It's easy to find oneself in the post, even though it isn't her intent.

Because you can't see it, Laga, doesn't mean the issues someone like me may have (which, again, isn't Susan's fault to the tenth power infinity) don't suddenly start going off like a gong. I don't say anything about it because it's my own problem. I do completely see how erika got there.

I think it was an interpretation issue, but some of us are ripe for that. Unsure if erika feels like I do. Not speaking for the erika.

Get published, read someone talk about how upsetting it is that she's been working very hard for a very long time and all these other folks (who aren't b.org, but still, it's just "other") keep getting book deals...

I think it was an interpretation issue, but some of us are ripe for that.

Allyson speaks for me.

What I'm saying is, we're all emotionally charged artsy people banging our collective skulls against walls.

All I can say is that I'm very sorry for setting off anyone else's issues. It wasn't my intent, I had no idea I was doing it until this came up today, and I will be more careful in the future.

but I'm not able to find anything that makes me think Susan thinks she's better than us

Better than *us*? No.

Buffistas are, on average, smarter than your average bear and better writers and we're well represented by several wonderful published authors.

Better than many others who are published? Yes.

That's how Susan's posts read to me. Every drabble relates to the WiP directly. Every time. And she seems to need to be published as a form of validation. There never seems to be writing for the joy of writing or writing because she needs to tell a story. It feel like writing to be published. And nothing less is acceptable.

I feel like I've been waiting to post that same message for forever now

This. This is how I read Susan's posts.

No, I totally understand you weren't being all stabby to anyone here, Susan.

Can't be expected to know what demons lurk in my brains, you know? I always feel like it was a mistake that I got published. I'm a wreck about writing this new thing and feel like I'm being presumptuous for even presenting it to my agent. I feel guilty that it happened to me, and not people more deserving. I don't think that demon will ever go away.

Ugly, awful demon.

Sort of, Allyson, yeah. Add that to the feeling I have that Susan and I don't share much beyond writerly...insecurity. Plus the fact that I tend to let things go till they make me "Hulk smash!" annoyed, and then it's like a sniper attack. And I've had sort of a bad week. So I might have said it anyway, but I would have been kinder about it, probably. I'm sorry I was rude. But maybe you do go into publishing correspondence and stuff wearing certain expectancies on your sleeve, Susan. Maybe it sets other people off, too. Maybe that was the thought I was aiming for without all the harsh and profanity. And I do think your work is interesting, even. I've liked it,when I've seen it.

You know what? I'll admit it. I envy all of you. I wish I could describe like Barb, and plot like Susan, and pack a scene like Typo, and get into a character's head like Erika, and be pithy like Allyson, and have half the vocabulary of most of the denizens here. But I don't. I struggle with every word and phrase, and although I get better with practice it's never going to be or seem effortless. I envy the fuck out of you.

For what it's worth.

I've never been clear on why it's wrong for drabbles to be related to a WIP (though I've pretty much stopped posting drabbles because I've felt like I get a bad reaction to ones that are WIP-related). Because to me drabbling about my WIP is part of the enthusiasm for writing and telling a story that apparently isn't coming through on this forum the way I feel it. I love my WIP and its characters--in some ways I live it. So when you give me a writing prompt, my first thought is, "How can I relate this to the story and the characters and world that I'm so crazy about?" The WIP is where I focus all my creative energies because I am so passionate about it.

And as for the drive for publication, while I fully admit there's a piece there that's need for validation, even that is about passion, too. Because the biggest single reason I dream of being a published author successful enough to at least cut back to a part-time job is so I'd have more time to devote to the thing that I love the most.

I wouldn't do this if I didn't love to write and I didn't love my stories. I'm not sure why that's not coming through, because it's there.

Ugly, awful demon.

Lying demon. Lying its ugly ass off, trying to derail you. Pen it up in a dark windowless corner of your brain and stabbinate it.

I remember when I was stuck on bedrest and a few Buffistas did me the great kindness of sending boxes of juicy braincandy novels to while away the weeks. In between all the gobs of mentally non-nutritive but delicious fun, there were a couple so very, spectacularly bad that I had to put them down after a couple of chapters because the pain of slogging through them was worse than the pain of bedrest.

And it's still boggling to me to think back on the sheer wretchedness of those things and then to look at Buffistas like erika and Typo and Susan who are good and thoughtful and can't find a publisher to take a chance on them, and Buffistas like Barb and Amy and my own Hec who have solid publishing histories and still get either left hanging or actively dicked around with. It's all so random it's enough to make you insane.

eta: I actually wrote and then deleted an entire rambly paragraph saying just what Susan did above. Susan's writing mindset is exactly what my acting mindset was a few years ago: I loved it so desperately that I was obsessed with getting that chance, that break, and tormented by every missed opportunity; I loved every present moment of what I was doing, but I so badly wanted the freedom to not do anything else that it made my stomach hurt.