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Thursday, October 16 2008

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Dee Tenorio's picture

Same Dog, New Trick

Submitted by Dee Tenorio on Mon, 2008-10-13 14:57.

I'm not a classics girl. I never read Austin. The Brontes tended to worry me. I was pretty sure there wasn't a classic I could stand. And then I met Tennesee Williams. Powerful, passionate writing, honest and raw and hot and deep and honest and angry. It was a sea of emotions that I must admit, I never quite recovered from and probably a huge reason why I write romance and not one story was as influential to that as "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof".
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Samantha Hunter's picture

Nearly Perfect

Submitted by Samantha Hunter on Thu, 2008-10-16 13:24.

One of the judgments a writer has to make every day is when something is "good enough" to send to an editor/agent or even have a friend look it over. One of the more disconcerting experiences is when you are sure it's "perfect" and then it comes back to you with mammoth edits or crits, or after something has been through gads of revisions and then someone emails you pointing out a gaffe so obvious in the printed version that you want to pull your hair out.
At that point you have to accept that writing is a human process and that flaws are unavoidable.
People often say my quilts are beautiful, or my cookies are delicious, but very rarely are any of them perfect. I've come to think of flaws like a little sign that someone real made this thing. Whenever I sigh over a flaw in a quilt, particularly something I am giving away, I'll remind myself that, "If they want it perfect, they can get that at JC Penney."
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