Things you never want to say in an e-mail to your critique partners
Posted by CM under Ornithology, Writing on Sat 3 Feb 2007
here are some things you never want to e-mail your critique partners:
- By the way, I’m really, really sorry about the omniscient crabs.
- It sucks. It’s not great. It’s not funny. It’s not witty.
- This chapter was going to [do X.] It no longer does. It all got hijacked.
Now imagine that all this is being said about Chapter 9. Three completely and utterly different versions of chapter nine. Not counting the crisis of faith that intervened and made me start a completely different version of my story, complete with 6000 words that will now have to be discarded, pshaw, because they sucked, and because it would have been a totally different story otherwise, and a suckier one, too.
February 3rd, 2007 at 9:14 am
How can anyone resist omniscient crabs? I presume you’re talking about the crustaceans and not the body lice. I must know more.
February 3rd, 2007 at 10:57 am
Whoa! I’m lost. Is this CM’s blog? It all looks so different.
Alice
ps. Sorry about the crabs. *grin*
February 3rd, 2007 at 11:43 am
Oh, my crabs are definitely crustaceans. Omniscient crustaceans.
February 3rd, 2007 at 10:57 pm
OMG, I am LOL at maggie. No, not those kind of crabs!
February 9th, 2007 at 5:31 pm
Crabs? Your manuscript had crabs. and omniscient ones at that! Heck. . . I wish I’d known. . .sigh.