Friday, April 9, 2010

Sicker Still

I said I was sick of blogging about my "almosts" and I am.  But I can't blog about my writing because I haven't really been doing any.  Spring holidays here, so Thirdling and Middlekid are home; Prima will be home as of next week for two weeks, and I find it impossible to work with them around.  Looks like I'm headed for perma-smack. But just because I need the sympathy, a poem rejection:

"I really like this, except that this part completely stalls out, for me:"
(insert lines editor didn't like)

Which made me laugh, in a scary, pathologically dangerous sort of way, because of a comment from the teacher of the writing class I took last fall. (Teacher is an ed. ass. for BIGNAME FANCY MAG):

"I really like that section towards the end:"
(insert same lines)

(deep breath)


Aiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiighhhhhhhhhhhhh!

5 comments:

Sarah Laurenson said...

Ah yes. The wonderful push-me pull-you of writing. I have the same problem with the beginning of one of my books. It's very polarizing and I get a lot of hate it/love it; keep it/get rid of it. What do you do with that, eh?

For me, I decided I loved it and it's staying. I just need to hook up with an agent and an editor who also love it. Had an editor who did, but she got laid off. Argh!

Mother (Re)produces. said...

No! That's so mean!

Yeah, polarizing. That's literature, though. I've had books I adored that good friends hated, and vice versa.

:(

Sylvia said...

I've had that with my manuscript - the beginning is too fast (the first chapter should be three!) and too slow (really need to speed up the action) and I'd like to scream now please.

I also tried my hand at erotic romance. Response: the story is good, if you get rid of the erotic bits. And maybe the romance bits. But the rest is good.

Um. OK...

Mother (Re)produces. said...

OH, man. So sift out the erotic bits and send them to an erotic mag and the squeaky clean bits to disney. Or the other way round? In the end, Sarah's right; if you put it on the shelf for six months and *still* love it when you come back to it, it stays.

Writing's just not like arithmatic, is it? Depending on the editor, two apples plus two apples could equal four apples or the whole garden of eden or why apples, why not oranges? or there's no market for apples at the moment but thanks for subbing.

Mother (Re)produces. said...

ps, go ahead and scream. In cyberspace, no one can hear you anyway ;)


(unless you upload a sound file...)