la_marquise: (Default)
la_marquise ([personal profile] la_marquise) wrote2010-09-10 07:46 pm

From the department of Wah!

I'm feeling a little overwhelmed today, mainly because I shall be away for just over two weeks from next Friday (17th) but on two separate trips. Due to this and that I need to be packed and ready for both by next Thursday lunchtime. I've made a list, to prove to myself that there really isn't that much that needs doing (mostly usual pre-trip things, like leg waxing and buying extra antihistamines) and I've done some of the things already. But all the same, I'm rather flustered. (One of the two trips -- the first one -- is Milford, which comes with a lot of advance reading. I've done about 1/3 of it already, but I'm still gibbering a bit.) So if I'm a bit flaky over the next few days, that's why.

[identity profile] ms-cataclysm.livejournal.com 2010-09-10 07:11 pm (UTC)(link)
Hugs ! I could send Panda over to growl at the advance reading?

[identity profile] zaan.livejournal.com 2010-09-10 10:30 pm (UTC)(link)
I got an invitation to Milford, eventually, after I had maybe 3 or 4 books out, do Kudos on getting it sooner. :) Well deserved too. :)
I had heard a lot about it, mainly from Andrew Stephenson and it really sounded quite harsh. Some folk were hyper critical because they wanted to be, and not necessarily pleasant with it. Many were OK.
I called up Sheila and asked her about it. She said I had no need to go as I was doing fine. I only had 3 sets of folk to worry about what they thought of my books, her, me, and my readers. At the same time I was going through a phase of getting hyper criticism from a couple of friends... along the lines of "Hey, you almost did that well..." and "you did that in such a cliched way...." when, on Sheila's advice, I covered past back-story in an accepted literary way, with memory sequences. I'd tried to write a book that was 2 in one, with alternating chapters, one set 1500 years in the past with characters due to appear in the "now" of the book due to being in a stasis cube all that time, and one with the current day story. I got as far as Ch 5 and had to phone Sheila as I couldn't continue. It was too much trying to write what was 2 separate books simultaneously. Kudos to Sheila, she encouraged me trying it! So around that time my ego was a tad more frail than usual. in fact I was on the phone to her in floods of tears about the friends comments, thinking I was a bad writer!

So be careful, love. Remember WE who matter, LOVE your work, and you! WE will always support you and be honest in the kindest ways to you. We will never undermine you by accident or design.
Remember you are an amazing writer, talented and great in many fields of writing, with an enormous amount of hard-earned knowledge at your fingertips. Never let anyone minimize that and if they try, ignore them. Just because they think they are the bees knees, doesn't mean they are for a moment right. :) Remember the literati of SF sell less books than us, they don't get letters from people going through chemotherapy saying you helped them escape from it! We do. :)

[identity profile] http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/ 2010-09-11 05:02 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you.
Milford, thankfully, has changed hugely. These days, it's more like spending a week in beautiful surroundings with a group of other people who love writing and reading and who approach everyone else's work with thought and a genuine desire to support, foster and polish it. I've been twice and both times come away with a renewed faith in my writing and my current projects. You'd enjoy it a lot, I suspect, as the people who go now are lovely, friendly, supportive and interesting.