Subdued Intrinsic

Well, okay, maybe not, "You suck!" verbatim, but something at least along the lines of "Uh, you might wanna rethink this," or, "Sorry, not feeling it."

That person is hopefully someone whose input you've actually asked for, like a critique partner, or a beta reader. Sometimes, if you don't have someone to tell you when you suck, your have a harder time feeling good about the times you don't suck.

It has been a very long time for me to have a person to tell me when I suck. A. Very. Long. Time. It's no one's fault, because life happens, and the people who used to tell me when I suck are terribly busy with the life happening. Starting new careers, reproducing humans, reproducing more humans, surgeries, education. It's tough enough (though worth it and never impossible) to keep up with being friends, let alone getting told I suck.

I'm busy, too. I went back to school. *pauses for applause*. I'm literally a soccer/basketball/band mom to three fledgling male humans (sometimes more, depending on whether or not any of my "might as well be half mine, anyway" kids are over--right now I have at least one of them every day between 7AM and noon). I have a husband who works hours that suit us, but would seem wonky to the rest of the world (We often get up at 6 or 7, send off small people to school, and then go back to bed until 10 or 11). I study Korean on the side. I have a metric crap-ton of creative hobbies--knitting, origami, watercolors, illumination, doing weird things to my hair.

Point being, I have a lot to distract me from writing, and not a lot of people to harass or encourage me when I slack--not writers who have an insider's idea of how that can be problematic.

BUT! Recently, I got one (yes, I make her sound like a scarf I found in a shop). We agree on about 92% of the stuff we talk about, which is great, but I think that 8% we disagree about is more helpful, because it means I have to look at something differently, and that's what I need. I need a point of view that can clearly say, "You suck," when I need it (J doesn't ever actually say I suck, and she's much more tactful than am I, but you get the idea). Sometimes she gives me a little poke and virtually whispers, "This sounds too formal," or, "You're trying too hard, here." I'm finding that invaluable. She also says lovely things, things that make me feel wonderful, but it's the troubles she points out that almost make me feel better.

Because would she highlight the bad if she didn't believe in my ability to improve upon it? Probably not. I wouldn't. I say evil things to her all the time. I question things in her writing mercilessly. Why? Because I'm pretty sure she's got the gumption to figure out the answers and apply them.

Yeah, it's hard to accept our own suckation, and our first instinct is to resent being called out on it. I am a generally aggressive, defensive, prickly person, I know, but it's a serious leveling up in your maturity game if you can begin looking at constuctive criticism as a positive thing.

Think of it as someone's faith in you.

Personal Note: No lady, that's not Sebastien Solis; that's my kid.

Hello, 13-year-old supermodel.

The last line I wrote in The Book is:

"Drew surprises me."

And even though it's only about 55 pages in, and i know how things proceed, what happens, and the whereto's and whyfore's I cannot for the life of me WANT to write anything more.

Send . . . encouragement?

Personal Notes: Outside of books, I am very hard to buy presents for. Not only am I one of those people who A. would rather have many smaller/moderate-sized presents than one big one, and B. would rather get nothing if it's not exactly what I wanted, but it took at least five years of gift therapy to train me not to have a panic attack when opening presents. I was always afraid of letting down the giver. You think I'm bad about it now? You should have seen me from years 16 to 20, when I was dating him.

So, if you look at us, my husband and I are obvious opposites. I'm colorful and chaotic and so obviously full of "look at me!" flair. N. is very laid back and kind of "everything I buy is black, brown, or white". It's been ten years, but I've finally introduced some color into his wardrobe.

Anyway, a random person on the street would probably look at us and sort of boggle. How? And then they would probably guess someone as traditionalist-looking as him would only be with someone as frenetic-looking as me for one reason. Yes, that one.

But I'm here to tell you, it is NOT SO. When it comes to love and privacy, I'm a closed book.

Which makes you consider surface people vs. under-the-surface people. One of the things I have to re-examine during this rewrite is "What are my main characters like on the surface?" vs "What are they like underneath that?" It kinda of comes down to motivation, one of my favorite subjects. But it also comes down to inherent differences like Boy vs. Girl.

Take for instance television shows. I'll admit it, I'm a sucker for just about anything that has a song and dance number in it, and that includes Fox's new hit show, Glee. Frankly, I don't really care about the characters (a first), but it's a show where people sing every week, awesome! N., has a slightly different view of it. He's thinks it's corny, and he openly mocks the shallow stupidity of the plotlines.

For you rare guys out there reading, ask yourself, "How do I react when someone I care about doesn't like/makes fun of/puts down something I like?" The answer is probably something like, I shrug my shoulders and move on two seconds later.

Not a girl. A girl will take your insulting the object personally. You are attacking something she takes pleasure in, therefore, you are attacking her. Whatever you say about it you're saying about her. Maybe this is some sort of weirdo, twisted, object-based maternal instinct to protect the things we care for, but that's how we roll.

It's not Mars and Venus. It's not even Manhattan and New Orleans. It's not The Rules (Gah, remember that?!? ACK!) but it's something to think about the next time you send your characters out on a date and the guy has some wise-crack remark to make . . . then again, if your chick is feisty and has a snark or two rolling from between her lips, that's okay. He'll get over it by the next paragraph. *snort*

Personal Note: I totally include myself in this post and for the record, my fingernails are an awesome prismatic silver color (see http://twitpic.com/6wucw ), Pandora just spit out one of my favorite songs from the 10 Things I Hate About You soundtrack, "I Want You To Want Me", by Letters to Cleo, and here's proof I'm not just mean to you guys: http://twitpic.com/6wu7j

So, for a while I very actively, slavishly participated in a website called Authonomy. You've probably heard of it. It had a lot of press in writerly circles. Anyway, so there I was, soaking everything up like a sponge and rather caught in the idea of getting my work in front of Harper-Collins' editorial staff's eyeballs (and for my part I have to say they've done just as they promised and they PR-ed it like no tomorrow) so I raced along, trying to charm, bribe, shock, WHATEVER my way to a higher ranking (every 30 days the top five ranked books get reviewed by HC) just like everyone else.

And then I got sick of it. Sick of playing nice and pretending not to be myself so I didn't step on toes. And I quit playing. This doesn't make me any better than the people who still 'Authonomize', than those who are making the mad dash for the 'Editor's Desk', but it's just not me.

I recently started popping in here and there to make contact with a few of the people* whose opinion I regard highly, asking if they'd be willing to search out weak places in Silver for me. In the process I had to wade a bit through the forums and comments and I actually felt dirty when I came back out. It was like walking down the seediest part of Vegas (I assume, as I've never been), only if Vegas were run by vulgar preschoolers. People prostituting themselves like crazy, people throwing huge hissy fits when they didn't get the critique they wanted, people slandering others, just really the worst of human traits splashed all over the place like a pride banner (being proud of your culture, your gender, your sexuality, your beliefs, that one thing, but to glorify the darkest, least redemptive aspects of your species? C'mon!)

And that brings us to the blog title today, a least the first part. XXXL.

What must writers truly think of themselves, how do we aggrandize ourselves to think this behaviour is acceptable? We bust have some ENORMOUS heads, seriously, to fit in all that ego. We come off sounding as if we're untouchable, our work beyond judgement, the standard to which all others should be held. What is WRONG with us?

I even fell into that pit a little this morning when I got in a line-critique from a writer friend who deals in a seriously different genre than I do. I got my back up because she kept pointing out places where I used an action as a dialogue tag (such as "Hi," he smiled.) and then, thankfully, I grew the Hades back up and felt grateful to her for pointing it out. I'm still not sure I agree with it (grammar rules aside--I know, *gasp!*) yet, but dagnabbit, that woman spent some of her well-earned three-day weekend to help ME improve MY brainchild and I am going to darn well be thankful for it. And I am.

Just remember guys, there is ALWAYS room for improvement. Always. Being 'a writer' doesn't excuse anyone for needing their share of modesty, and it doesn't make one infallible. If you've seen the early drafts of Silver and have recently seen where a year of learning and re-writing, and basically kicking my own butt all over the place because this is it for me, this is IT, you see what a heartbreaking/dream-making effort it all is.

If you love it, if it's part of you, if writing is IT for you, somewhere in your spirit you'll just know when it's time to put yourself aside and let someone else have a go, and while it certainly may hurt, you'll still appreciate it, because the pain is worth it. The pain is worth swallowing your protests, setting your "But, but, but!" aside and letting all the work.

Let someone else wash the muck off you. What's left will be truth, and as you know, it always wills out.


*I feel like I should insert here I DID make several very good, talented, helpful friends there who were very involved in my learning about the art of writing (you can often find one or two commenting here, in fact). Again, I stress Authonomy isn't all bad, just the parts that are bad are bad enough keep me mostly away. I do keep a copy of Silver there for safety's sake (so I have a digi copy out in the world; my computer has crashed on me once already) and because, yes, every once in a while someone finds it among the piles of slush and has something to say about it. I just don't promote it.

Personal Note(s): Remember when I said Kelly Clarkson's "My Life Would Suck Without You" was a terrible message? Yeah, well, Pink has come out with one, too. SERIOUSLY? "Please Don't Leave Me"? That doesn't even sound like a Pink song.

I have a monthly book allowance, no joke. My husband has learned the best way to keep me from spending a ton of money on books in random spurts is to give me a $25 free pass that I get to use when I go do the monthly grocery shopping. It's kind of the same logic as not sending a starving woman out to pick up milk and eggs so she doesn't come back from Winn Dixie with a Hershey's chocolate creme pie and three kinds of chips. This time around I lucked out even more as I got to combine my $25 with a Mother's Day gift card from Book-A-Million. Got five books and a really cool package of The Wizard of Oz magnetic bookmarks. I like Glinda best; she knows her glitter. Also, Also, I'm having a tuna melt for lunch, and I will enjoy it like WHOA.

So, let me preface by saying that I've had at least two blog post subjects in my head for a week or so and no time to let them out, and on top of that Nathanael talked me into trying half a Sudafed tablet to kill off yet another cold. NOT. A. GOOD. IDEA. One could safely call him a necrophiliac because he loves me, and I am currently the Walking Dead. Someone cue The Cranberries' "Zombie". My brain staying on-topic isn't going well.

And with that, TO THE POST! Which is basically an expansion on something I said a post or two ago about criticism, also known as 'feedback' if you want to put a smiley-face on it, which you should, because despite how much hearing something icky about your baby hurts, it also helps. Like the little old witch says in Neverending Story: It has to hurt if it's to heal.

The truth is you love your characters and your story and your 'everything about it' too much to be truly objective which is why you need other people to do it for you . . . and HADES! I just remembered where I was really going with this so let's back up a second.

A while back I had a conversation with a non-writer friend about another mutual writer friend and Friend A's (the non-writer) confusion over just what's expected of her as a test reader for Friend B (the writer). Obviously, being a writer as well, and one who has at least a bit of experience and education on Friend B when it comes to the subject, I was in a good place to help Friend A figure out her role when Friend B brought her a new project and then sat there at her knee, waiting with baited breath for Friend A to finish reading and TELL HER ALL ABOUT IT. Of course, the problem really didn't lie in Friend A being clueless or afraid of discouraging Friend B, but rather in Friend B's reactions to feedback, AKA 'the poison we must all develop a natural resistance to so we can get the hades on with business'. If Friend A said she liked the work Friend B wanted to know why and if Friend A pointed out a plot hole or other discrepancy Friend B went off in a fury trying to explain what Friend A should have gotten without a problem. As you can see, Friend A is basically screwed. Rock, allow me to introduce you to A Hard Place, and please, disregard that smudgy place between you there; that's just Friend A.

Anyone will tell you when I first got this idea in my brain to write a book and finally let someone see it that I was totally defensive about the whole thing. My good (also-writerly) friend Michelle (go click the Belletrinsic link left of here and say hello) can TESTIFY about how badly I reacted to her first tentative, very polite suggestion that maybe my 'voice' in early drafts of Silver were a little too formal, too precise for a young adult/teen novel. To be brief, I threw a hissy fit. Oh, how far I have evolved since that low of low points! Brothers and sisters! I say unto you revere and court those among you who will lend you an honest word or two about your manuscript, because buddy, you need it. It's been a year since Michelle risked her life to point out a serious weakness in the book and I 'went off like a devil in a church' about it.

Getting back with our 'poison' illustration, think of it like an immunization: You know it's going to sting like hell, and you know it'll even keep aching for a day or so after, but if it keeps you from going out into the big bad world where the real Big Boys and Girls play with nothing to stop them from infecting you (i.e. tearing your work to shreds and outright rejection) you've got to man up, remember to relax that muscle in your arm so it hurts less, and let the medicine do its job.

And after all that, you'll be strong enough.


I have a Happy Bunny pin with this on my purse. You can find things like it here: http://happybunny.orbitearthstores.com/ttp/Mean-sissy-Happy-Bunny-Basic-Tee/products_id/57.html