It's About Time...

...I blog a little at least. Please bear with me, as I may seem more down than usual (I know, can I be any worse, you wonder), but I am tired and that tends to make me blah.

Last few weeks I've been working extra hours, which end right now, as I blog (just finished work today, even though I'm still here waiting until the husband can pick me up). So, I wrote nothing.

I have happily made a dent in my piles of papers. Still can't find that list of recommended agents though.

I should be registering for the writing retreat in June, but I am not sure how I would get from the airport to Greensburg at this point (I wanted to do the whole come early with a few others and have some writing time before the retreat - I still want to, but the others are another matter). So, I'm kind of frustrated with that because I don't want to take the train - 2 hour layover in Chicago does not appeal to me or my laptop.

Another reason why I haven't been encouraged to write is the lack of having anybody to critique my current novel project. It's like after graduating, the fake floor opened and I fell through. You think that you'll have the friends and critique partners you had for Seton, but then you realize, they're too busy, and without the carrot of school deadlines, they barely have time to write their own stuff let alone exchange things to critique. I do feel kind of abandoned, but then again, I've always had self-esteem issues. I need the feedback on my writing, so I can improve, and it always amazes me when some people can comment on certain things, and then my mind can latch onto a comment and it just blossoms other ideas - crits are my spark. Not to mention, if I know someone is expecting words to critique, I don't want to let them down, so it's way more encouragement to actually get it out. So, yes, I did mention I joined Critters, to try to get critiques from somewhere. Critters seems to be worse than I remember it. I'm not sure if it's just morphed since I was last part of it, or if it actually was always that way and I see it differently since I've been through the WPF program. I'm not saying its bad writing or that every comment given is horrible. What it is, is a crap shoot. Last week my RFDR was up (Request for Dedicated Readers). Do you want to know how many offers I received to critique my entire novel? Zero - exactly zero. How many crits of the chapters that were posted with the RFDR request? Two. The first one made my jaw drop as they obviously didn't read past the first chapter, and every note was pretty much saying my grammar sucked (not in those words, but pretty much saying they didn't understand what I meant in almost each and every sentence was a bit disconcerting). I mean, my grammar can't be that atrocious if I was able to get through the program (and I know Tim would have cut me a new one if it was that horrible!). The second one was a decent crit. He at least read all four chapters and made some good points. SO. No dedicated readers, and only one decent crit. Needless to say, if I wasn't in the middle of doing an RFDR for someone else, I think I'd leave Critters to continue on its merry way without me. Or am I really that bad of a writer that no one thought the novel was worthy enough to give feedback on and everyone is afraid to tell me?

Yes, a tad depressed right now. And feeling no one understands me. I try to explain my feelings and am pretty much just told they aren't valid. I think I'm in the No One Cares mode right now - self-pity is the pool of scum I'm sitting in. Bleh. See, I probably shouldn't have blogged. I wanted to at least let the few people who still read this know that I'm alive.

I hope everyone else's is going far better than mine (I swear, I sound like a broken record, to use a horrible cliche). Until next time...