Well, to make  a very long story short we talked plot. Rather, I blabbed and they offered input.

Both of them are readers (the one more voracious than the other), but neither are writers.

The non-writer reader input can be illuminating, ranging from them suggesting exact options that you toyed with¹ to acting as a sounding board for the workability of the way you’re leaning to a suddenly inspired out of the blue, “maybe he feels guilty?” that, without knowing exactly the specifics as to why the character is guilty, you feel in your gut makes perfect sense anyways.

And ultimately plot ideas so ridiculous they cannot possibly be viable no matter how entertaining they are.(This was signalled by Jaco getting this gleam in his eye, giggling and going, “oh, wait, wait, how about!” and proposing the most ludicrous thing he can think of. Like I said, too ridiculous for  a genuine plot but the Immaculate Conception is always entertaining²

Or are they so ridiculous they just might work?

That’s the thing. It just might be an accidental stroke of genius I need to consider.

It’s a truism, to me, that writers are the worst judges of their own work.

But are they necessarily better judges of someone else’s writing?

Sometimes yes, but I do have my doubts.

All writers have specific habits and ways in which they think and lean towards, and it can be that they’re the most rigid to evaluating ideas and works on their own merits, and more likely to superimpose what they themselves would have done and prefer.

It’s not so unlikely to me that writers are horrid judges of stories because it’s more difficult for them to evaluate like a reader does.

I’m referring here to unfinished, works in progress, not finished books. The latter everyone experiences like a fan would, while the former is a much greater mystery as to whether it can and cannot find fans and why?

Surely, the reason writers hunger for editorial feedback and join critique groups and workshops is precisely because the evaluation of an unfinished work is such a mystery.

Logic would dictate that writers are the most obvious choice to teach at workshops.

Logic? In the book world? what a silly concept!

Maybe the problem with workshops is that they’re full of writers.Actually, they pretty much only have writers. No readers.

Maybe an alternative is to go to writers if you want to know if something is good, or working, and to go to readers as a sounding board for ideas. So the former is for when something has been written, and the nuts and bolts need to be scrutinized and the latter is for pre-write, the embryo stage when you’re stuck and need a different viewpoint to bounce ideas off, when you’re lost in Swamp PlotBunny and need to ask someone for directions.

eh, whatever.

The state of the publishing world doesn’t really fill me with an overwhelming sense of “oh noes, woes!”that it is my pre-ordained duty (dare I say, destiny? wtf motivates crusaders?) to save itself from.

Sure, there are trends of concern and disappointments with some of the things being done but for the time being I still find plenty of the kind of books that I like to read and that is enough for me.

And “workshop voice” is a concern far too lightly dismissed, especially in the shorter fiction world.

And so many people are/ want to be writers that A Reader is becoming an endangered species, it feels like.

Non-writer readers most certainly wouldn’t be better critiquers than writer readers, they’re just different.

And a lot more entertaining. This I promise you.

1. too obvious then or exactly right? oh, the angst of not knowing!!
2. don’t ask

How to think about goals, Making goals real, Personal example on how to set goals,  Attitude and Numbers, Doing the Numbers, Avoiding Failure, More than one goal, Motivation, Fear, Craft Goals, Summary and Tricks.

Still with Smith — he’s added a new feature: a writing streak Page. Anyone can join in, simply report at the end of the month and he’ll add you to the page.

Rabies may have inspired vampires — this is so cute

Jim Hines has been writing this series of the Writer as RPG character. Do read it if you haven’t yet, and this is part 2 so click back for part 1. hilarious.

Facebook inside joke — what if Pride and Prejudice were written in a FB newsfeed style?

Dudes don’t read, a self-fulfilling prophecy — talk about a provocative article. As one can expect, the comments section range all over the place, from folk with axes to grind gleefully latching onto this to outright affronted dismissal. This will probably elicit various emotional responses in people. I found it an interesting, and unusual today, perspective.

Use of the world “like” serves a like useful purpose in language — I’m not English, not a teen (well, in literal years) but also use it and also likely to use it more in casual conversati0n than like, elsewhere.

Glossary of Book Publishing Terms — this is so good I don’t even know where to begin to pick favourites!

The Museum of Bad Art.

All Hail Sir Terry Pratchett!

Best of the Onion:

Courage — thine name is golf player. Quite possible one of the most brilliant and subtle pieces of satire written in recent times.

Factual error found on the internet shocks world and undermine’s internet’s impeccable reputation as source of unimpeachable information.

Great fightback by the SA cricket team! oh, man, if we win this one we win the series! yes, yes, still 2 days to go but considering yesterday I was thinking “omg, we’re so fucked”, and today we are IN THE LEAD the dream is on.
Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz go to war again is my first Garth Nix story. Very enjoyable, and what a fascinating world he’s got here! Has anyone read his books?
Words are flowing, I am Zen. ok, ok, almost nearly mostly sometimes Zen. We’ll get there yet, precious, yes we will.

1. photo credit Donna Cymek

Jay Zygmunt did the honorable thing and fell on his sword, taking one for the team.

Who cares?

Zyggy is gone, and the St Louis Lambs future looks a little less bleak than it did last week. A little bit. As a wise man once said, it’s the little things that count.

Maybe one of these days they’ll stop playing Fools ball and remember they’re supposed to be an NFL team. Could have been an elite NFL team, were it for the likes of Zyggy…

I do have more happy news, but will save it for tomorrow.

Joshua Palmatier reveals to the world the reason George Martin is unable to finish the Song of Ice and Fire books.

Tonight was Boston Legal night. Watching Allen Shore and Denny Krance assault the sacred systems of Law and Decency with behavior that can only be described as

OUTRAGEOUS!

always makes me happy

It’s the little things you know.

For 8 days, post 1 thing every day that made you happy. Then tag 8 other people. So many people have already been tagged, but hopefully these few haven’t yet:

Mary Robinette Kowal, Catherine Hellisen, Jess, Krispy, Marshall Payne, Jim Hines, Camille Alexa, Charles Tan.

Well, right now I do have a reason to be happy

The SA cricket team beat Australia — in OZ! This is pretty major. For more than a decade Aus has ruled the cricket world. We’ve pretty much constantly been the runners-up — the chokers and the could-have been’s.

We had our moments, times when it looked like we could break the Australian stranglehold. But they were almost moments. With this win, we go 1 up in the series and maybe, just maybe, we finally have the team that can do it.¹

It’s good to be cautious still. Australia  rebounds every time we think we’re close to beating them. But today we won, and I’ll take it.

Graeme Smith may finally have a team that compliments his own mindset. The Aussies are cautious of Smith and for good reason. He’s never backed down from them, always taken the game right to them no matter how impossible it might seem (He was part of the famous 438 ODI — arguably the greatest game ever played in one day cricket when SA chased down an impossible score. Now, he’s led his team to [speaking under correction] the second highest run chase in test cricket history and the biggest on Australian soil).

AB de Villiers made a half century and a century. He’s carried on the form he had in England and deserves the Man of the Match award. There’s a realistic chance he could attain the one thing that always evaded Herschelle Gibbs — consistency.

On pure ability alone, Gibbs and de Villiers are the two best batsmen we’ve produced this millenium, but consistency is the reason Jaques Kallis has been the Big Gun in our line-up, not Gibbs.

I’m really pleased with JP Duminy’s half century too. He’s one of those unlucky players that should have played a lot more games for SA but somehow that never happened. He’ll probably lose his spot when Ashwell Prince returns. He’s a good player and it looks like between him and Prince we’ll have a batsman who can stabilize the middle. Middle order collapses have been SA batting’s trademark since re-admittance, combined with spirited figtbacks by our #7-#9 batsmen.

I have to admit, Hashim Amla has surprised me. I didn’t think he’d be able to cut it at this level, but he’s quietly gone about his business and is developing into a very solid no3 batsman. Leaving Kallis to shift down to #4. Followed by de Villiers, Prince/ Duminy and Boucher.

Good Christ, we have a batting line-up! Maybe. No more close your eyes and hope Lance Klusener will save us from the inevitable #@$%-up when the middle-order get their habitual stage fright and fall down showing their bellies, like puppies facing off against ravenous wolves.

Well, maybe. Early days.

In Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel we have what I personally think is the most talented duo of young quick bowlers in the world today. They have it in them to rival the great pairs of fast bowling. Whether they’ll get there time will tell. And now the Makhatini is fast getting his form back too, which gives us that vital no3 bowler to help them out. Kallis is taking wickets again. Paul Harris is doing better than I thought he would in the spinner role. We’ll never have the likes of a Shane Warne or Anil Kumble, we’re not that kind of country and it’s been downright silly of the selectors to keep chasing the dream of a match-winning spin bowler. What we do have, are spinners who can compliment and back-up our real strength, which is the Fast Bowlers. We do produce some pretty fine fast bowlers and SA needs to play to its strengths, not try to emulate someone else’s way.

This team is young. They have the ability, maybe more than any team we’ve fielded since re-admittance. The cricket world really is theirs for the taking. Or losing. Chokers, like their predecessors.

But today they won.

1. picture credit to The Corridor cricket blog

anyways, ID is a comment system. I’m trying it out, seeing if this will be more effective. My big concern is how it will affect people who don’t have ID accounts. You don’t need to be an ID user to comment, which is good.

Do me a favor? go wild in the comment section to this post, and please let me know how it works, specifically the threaded comments and whether non-ID users can get email notifications or not. (You can’t, via ID itself, but there should be a subscribe to comments option box still there.)

let’s see how this goes.

EDIT:

use the previous posts as comment practise until I can figure out why the comments turned themselves off again, and also let me know if the smilies are working or not.

EDIT2: Nevermind. ID gone. just not good enough yet and too much hassle created on the backend. carry on. tell me a joke?