Listen up, Linda!
I’ve taken all I can take these last three weeks. Your emotional roller coaster is making me sick. Chill the heck out. You’re a writer. Writers write. And writers, if they’re smart, let trusted writers read their work and give them feedback. And if those writers are any help at all, they give you honest critique. Got it? 
So they told you the book isn’t done. So they suggested more than a few little tweaks. Get over it. Stop this rush to worst case scenario. You are not a fake. You are not the worst writer in the world. You are not too stupid or too old to learn (though you just might be too stubborn). And you are not going to delete your blog, your Facebook page, and your Twitter account.
And, above all else, you are not going to throw this book out and start another one.
Get a grip. Quit your whining. Stop your bellyaching. Walk out on the pity party and lock the door behind you.
GET TO WORK.
You have a good story, but we’re about to make it fantastic. Got it? Okay. Let’s go.
Signed, Your wise and patient Muse
Geez, the stuff a Muse has to put up with.
Congratulations to your muse! She is absolutely right. BTW, I thought I was done with my WIP until a dear writer friend of mine said something about POV. Hint, hint. Have a great weekend!
Well, Christa, what are writer friends for, right?
Absolutely!
You listen up there, girl, or I’m sending my muse over to help yours give you a jolly good – musing. Think yourself lucky it’s not Stephen King’s; his smokes, drinks whisky, and puts his smelly feet up on the table.
Ha! At least my Muse is a bit more sophisticated, Suzanne. I wish she’d share some of her Scotch, though.
Offer her a nice Chablis, she might be lured out!
Oh. Well, if I have to share mine then forget it.
Ha, ha, so the love of wine runs in the family–not just in the literary one. I can relate. I started counting the number of “Prosecco” in my WIP.
Oops! Thanks for the reminder, Christa. I have to add “reduce wine drinking” to my WIP edit list. Not in my life, of course.
Is your muse related to mine? I will print this and hang it on my wall. Oh, and I will get back to my WIP.
I thought all Muses just attended the same conferences, Darlene, but it appears from Eric’s comment they’re unionized!
So, yeah you’d better get back to work.
“You writers are weird, what with all your hang-ups and insecurities. If it’s so painful, why do you even do it? Other than to keep us employed, that is.”
- UMI (United Muses International), Local 124
Thanks for the laugh, Eric.
And if you’re not kidding, I guess we’d better shape up before they go on strike.
Then we might have a legitimate reason for all the self-doubt!
I am not Amused. Actually maybe I am A-mused because my muse seemed to have disappeared. Oh well, it sounds like you need it more than me to get your editing done. I’m just sitting here sitting in my crapulence, eating cookies, simmering in self doubt…you know the usual. When you are done, lend me yours and I will give them a talking to. So petulant and rude sometimes. Good luck with edits. I’m doing a few myself this evening (without my muse)
Thank you, Robin. I’m always tense during revisions. I worry that I’ll do more harm than good. And I’m certain I’ll enter more typos! My mentor reminded me—again—how many revisions my first novel went through. I tend to remember only the good past.
I’m glad to hear you got useful feedback from your beta readers and that you’re feeling grounded again!
Thanks, Cathryn. I have to say I’ve lost some of my love for editing, though.
*laughs*
Thanks for the kick in the pants, Linda. I have been spending too much time worrying about the spiderwebs on my Amazon page, so this helped. I may walk away one day, but it won’t be tomorrow.
I hope life has been treating you well, my dear friend. *hugs*
-Jimmy
Hi, Jimmy. Enjoying this cold weather?
If I tell you this “letter” is no joke, does that tell you how life’s been treating me—writing life, I mean? I’m fine now, but it was touch and go there for a while.
K. McGee say, “Better to receive corrective tongue in private than to receive laughing one in public!”
Honestly written reviews are valuable tools! Your muse is a wise companion.
So true, K.
Yes, she’s valuable. I just wish I could stop making things so hard on her.
Being chewed out by the muse – it must not have been fun.
No, not at all, David. But I’m glad she hasn’t given up on me.
*HUGS*
Thank you, Michelle.