I’ve convinced myself I’m a horrible writer because of the difficulties I had with publishing Wind, Bear, and Moon. Call it the self-inflicted torture that I think a lot of writers put themselves through. Fluffy called me being “emo” when it happens (i.e. most nights that I don’t have a productive writing session… you know, most nights period).

One of the things that makes it worse is positive feedback. It might be strange, but I’ll use a co-worker for example. Yesterday, at lunch, one of my peers asked to read the first chapter of Flight of the Scions (i.e. Wind, Bear, and Moon rewrite 4). After 5-10 minutes, I got a short review.

It’s good. I liked it.

While I enjoy his company, I hate that review. I also get it from family members and friends. Well, I get the reverse from some family, as they tear it apart and tell me every little thing I do wrong.

I think that is why I’m enjoying Noble Pen, the critique group, so much. They are honest about the stuff they read. I’ve seen them pick apart some of the members stuff, but they list both the good and the bad at the same time. They talk about the higher level stuff I never think about, but also the lower level grammar I struggle with. Nothing is ever completely positive or completely negative.

So, when they say they like my chapter, it feels more real than friend’s and family’s reviews. I got some really good suggestions on making it easier to read, places to clean up the sentences, and suggestions for representing the genre better, but I came out of it feeling like I learned something and I’m not quite as lousy as I make myself to be.

I’m doing chapter two for next week, which means I need to write a lot for the coming weekend. I try to finish everything by Sunday, but I also have my commission due Tuesday after that. It’s doable and it will be fun, but it also means a very exciting weekend.

After the various struggles this week, I think I got over the hump of it. The car repair place found out how they screwed up my car (apparently the supersekrit fuse under the driver side seat) and fixed it for free. The flashing lights and stalling are part of the security system, so once the computer started talking again, everything worked smoothly. It was also an expensive week. I have to push back a few bill payments just to get through it, but I think I have a plan going forward. I even annoyed Verizon by taking off as much as possible from the phone bill to reduce the price by another $20/month.

I’m happier.

In writing, I think I’m doing good. I wasn’t planning on working on Flight of the Scions until after My Father’s Bike, but the need to have something finished today for the writing group (Noble Pen) means I went with that instead of another comedy piece. I mean, I still don’t see me as a comedy writer, but most of my publishing successes are humorous.

The new chapter is much different than the first. It builds up the main character’s personality a lot more. It also changes them from whiny to slightly bitter/frustrated, which is an emotion I can work a lot better with. Plus, I got rid of the some of the low-grade Mary-Sueism. It also reduces number of introduced characters in a single chapter from 7 to 3. Though, since the earlier chapters dictates why things happen in the later, it also completely changes the why of the novel, but with the same end result as the original.

Later this week, I need to work on the commission. So, no distractions… yeah, right.

This week has turned into a complete cluster, but a few deep breaths and I think I’m getting through it. One of the bright points was the writing group last night (yeah, had a busy day).

Plus, I got honorable mention in a contest.

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Actually had a fair amount of progress with writing. Kind of fun, actually, and felt pretty good. Mostly, I worked on My Father’s Bike for the early part of the week. Not a lot of progress, but things got much faster once I started getting into the emotionally-charged scenes. Something about emotions makes the words go faster.

Thursday, did my second visit to the writing group. Didn’t quite that much of an ass of myself, but I felt I was a tad bit more negative than I normally am. They didn’t seem too upset, but I also don’t have a really good feel for what they want or need out of me in the group.

Though, I did volunteer to finish Victim of Love for next Thursday. Maybe the deadline will get me moving faster (at all) on finishing that story so I could try submitting it out.

And, in very good news, I got another commission this week! Nothing really major, a 10k word story, but it is a good commission and right in the sweet spot of my writing topics. So, I think it will be a smooth and easy one, or at least I’m hoping it will.