I appear to be on the mend. \u00a0I had some trouble sleeping last night, but it was only partially due to the coughing and sniffling. \u00a0The plague seems to be receding. \u00a0I may even be healthy by tomorrow morning, just in time for another woefully busy Monday.<\/p>\n
Part of what kept me up last night was my thoughts, tumbling over and over thanks to the writers group I attended last night. \u00a0There weren’t that many people, and I felt unprepared. \u00a0I hadn’t received the other writers’ work until a couple of hours before we were to meet, so I didn’t have a chance to read and prepare a decent critique. \u00a0The other writers, on the other hand, had read the start of my novel, and had plenty to say.<\/p>\n
They weren’t necessarily mean. \u00a0In fact, none of what they had to say was mean, and none of it was a surprise. \u00a0They were just shining a bright light onto my work, and I wasn’t quite prepared for the scrutiny.<\/p>\n
I know that my novel is really rough right now. \u00a0I’ve been trying not to go back and edit it until the whole first draft is done. \u00a0On the plane back from San Antonio a few weeks ago, I tried a compromise where instead of editing stuff, I added comments into the document.<\/p>\n
Much of what the writers in the group had to say I’d already said in my comments. \u00a0It really shouldn’t have bothered me. \u00a0It did, though, as much as I tried not to be bothered. \u00a0I know that it’s not done. \u00a0I know that I’m going to redo quite a bit of the beginning, once I get to the end. \u00a0In spite of that, I tossed and turned last night, unable to let it go and rest.<\/p>\n
This is a big step for me. \u00a0My confidence in my work has been spotty at best. \u00a0One of the things I’m trying to learn with this writer’s group is how to maintain my confidence in spite of criticism. \u00a0I’m also trying to improve my craft in general while offering my own insights. \u00a0The real challenge, however, will be getting over the problems with my writing, so that I can keep going. \u00a0I don’t want to hit a point where I hate my work and stop writing again.<\/p>\n
Maybe next time we meet, I’ll be in better health, and I’ll be better able to handle people looking at my writing under a microscope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I appear to be on the mend. \u00a0I had some trouble sleeping last night, but it was only partially due to the coughing and sniffling. \u00a0The plague seems to be receding. \u00a0I may even be healthy by tomorrow morning, just in time for another woefully busy Monday. Part of what kept me up last night […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=88"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88\/revisions\/89"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=88"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=88"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=88"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}