The thing is

[ksmith]

...even though I knew the wip needed work, and in many of the places that Editor pointed out--this is a 5-page letter, single-spaced--I still need to adjust to the facts that the letter is indeed here and the wip is not perfect. I knew it wasn't perfect, but I was, of course, willing to be proved wrong. No such luck for five previous books. No such luck now. Time to dig the tool box out from under the bed.

They say that it takes ten good reviews to counteract one bad one. Well, a revision letter, no matter how encouraging it is in places, is a bad review. Granted, it is a bad review of the constructive sort, a bad review that no one else need ever read. The issues it points out should be repaired, never to see the light of day. For the most part. There may be some room for discussion here or there...

Not asking for sympathy or pats on the back. It's just something I need to work through before I settle down to work. The realization that I still have miles to go before this book sleeps.

Comments

[jessica-de-milo.livejournal.com]

Ok. So, no sympathy or pats on the back. Just a little encouragement: you can do it!

[e-moon60.livejournal.com]

Offering sympathy anyway, because bad reviews--even constructive bad reviews--hurt. And your hurt deserves to be treated with respect and a cup of something soothing, so you can think better how to fix it.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I just wish I was better at getting it right the first time.

Well, I'm in for a frigid weekend, with wind chills well below zero. I'll likely be building fires in the evenings--they always make things comfortable. Much thinking to do.

[e-moon60.livejournal.com]

Don't we all!

I don't *intend* to turn in a flawed book. I work and work and work on it, and if hours alone and effort alone could do it, the thing would be spotless, shiny, perfect. Alpha readers have gone over it as well.

Then my agent and my editor tell me what's wrong with it and I want to curl up and die. I'm already sick of the thing--I want to do something else--I don't want to have to go back into that now-obviously-horrible story yet again and try to shuffle and shift and push and prod it into something halfway decent.

But that's apparently what's going to happen with every single book of mine, so I have to be prepared, go down that nasty dark hole one more time.

I don't think editor have any idea how painful and nasty and disgusting it can be.

E.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

It's demoralizing. How can I call myself a storyteller if I can't construct a story without help? Shouldn't I be able to manage it on my own? What's wrong with my story judgment? Why can't I tell whether or not something works?

Dammit, I should know how to do this.

It seems that February will be fraught and full of incident.

Keep Going

[(Anonymous)]

Keep going! I constantly return to your novels in my brain. That must mean you have some vision you have previously communicated, and that you can communicate once again.

My undergrad degree was in flim production, but my true love was editing (working with the raw material to make it better). OK, so I'm now an elementary school teacher--but still, it's all about taking that raw material and making it better!

That can be the fun of it!

Anjie

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

*snort* That's exactly how I (and as far as I can tell practically everybody) feels. It's not that we can't tell stories. It's that we're too close to see the flaws. And we all feel like morons for not seeing what was OBVIOUSLY SCREAMINGLY APPARENT, which is made worse by the fact that as soon as somebody else points it out it *becomes* obviously screamingly apparent.

I go through exactly the same thing every time I get a revision letter. And what I hate most of all is that in almost every instance, my editor/agent is *right*. Grrrrr. :)

[lagilman]

what everyone else has said, pretty much. I try to train myself into thinking of the Letter as 'what I would have seen, given a month away from it' but it still stings like an ego-deflating wasp...

[jemck.livejournal.com]

Of course you're not asking for sympathy. We all know how this game is played.

So this is nods of fellow feeling, groans of complete understanding, encouraging noises and if such a thing were geographically possible, there would offers of meeting up for a coffee to kick ideas around and/or just natter about telly and books and stuff for an hour by way of light relief.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I go through exactly the same thing every time I get a revision letter. And what I hate most of all is that in almost every instance, my editor/agent is *right*. Grrrrr. :)

Yeah. Those parts that I felt probably needed work, but might slip by--they didn't slip by. The storyline I snipped off in the middle--didn't tuck that dangly end away as well as I thought I had. It is a rare issue that my editor discusses that I haven't pondered at some point. Dammit.

Re: Keep Going

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

but still, it's all about taking that raw material and making it better!

This is exactly the case! And I have said before, I'm a rewriter, not a writer. I need to get that first draft down before I can add and subtract and fix what needs fixing. I just need to gear down and get to it.

I appreciate the kind words about the Jani novels. The story pretty much came out as I wanted, and with just as much angsting, if not more.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I try to look at it as confirmation of whatever doubts I had, even as the Little Voice (tm) meeps, "Well, if you knew something was wrong, why didn't you fix it in the first place?" Which is one reason why I keep Little Voice in the box under the bed with the tools.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

The thing is, there are two kinds of sympathy. There's the "there, there, dear--what do *they* know?" Images of a mother hen, wings spread, sheltering her poor dear while glaring at the awful person who dared criticize.

Then there's the corner-of-the-boxing-ring brand of sympathy. Waving towels and squirts of water in the face and "that was a low blow, but you can get 'em, Champ" while they drag you to your feet and push you to the center of the ring, where the keyboard awaits.

An hour of light nattering sounds wonderful. That's why I wish all the writers I knew lived within an hour's drive. Or that I could just open the wardrobe door and there they'd be.