Thursday, May 10, 2012

To be a writer, you need a thick skin

I am very lucky to have Jane as a co-writer. Her judgment is impeccable, and she cares as much about the exact arrangement of words and the choice of said words as I do. Sometimes I find her comments bracing, but I realised yesterday that the mood I am in, and the amount of effort I have put into a piece of writing that I send her, impact unreasonably on my reaction to her emailed response.

Yesterday, I sent her yet another draft of the synopsis for Plotting for Grown-ups (Yay! See! We got a title in the end! Although…it is just a working title at present…) and she sent me this reply:

hi daise

no this doesn't work at all - it doesn't begin properly, it looks a) very bitty  b) very un-slick and hence un-pro - i would so not want to read a book by peeps who couldn't even get a snazzy synopsis together

but I think if I get out my hatchet it may work -

can't decide if i need to do this or september

best dilemmas love g x

A perfectly fair email. But I was tired and fed up, and what I saw, were the words “This is total crap.”

Poor Jane, she has to put up with someone who has knee jerk emotional reactions to emailed comments, and sees words that just aren’t there.

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