Finally slept through the night last night, so I’m feeling better, although after a slew of copy editing my brain is rather mushy. I’m having a cup of tea and searching for the energy to exercise, and then get on to other work.

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Well, I seem to have fucked up royally. My post on Thursday about critiquing was intended to be a discussion of my feelings, but I seem to have offended several people by what I wrote. That was absolutely not my intention, but if my message was received wrong, I have to take some of the blame for it. I find myself questioning all of my communication now—after all, I did wait 8 hours after writing that bit on Thursday, and reread it carefully to see if anything could be misconstrued, before I posted it.

I’m torn between deleting what I wrote and trying to forget about it (which I know I wouldn’t be able to do) and trying to rectify things by explaining (which I should do, but I’m nervous about, because I could easily make things worse). The result is that I’ve been avoiding the journal and e-mail.

The bottom line: What I wrote was not intended as an attack on anybody, nor even a personal complaint. It was me questioning myself, which came out of my negative feelings about my writing and my ability to judge a situation accurately.

I deliberately did not want to name names, but as Jenn asked specifically, I’ll address what she said. Yes, Jenn, you are the “person who bowed out”. That was not intended to be a complaint, simply a statement of what happened. You were one of the five people to whom I sent the novel (based on your agreement earlier this year to read it, even though you didn’t respond to my “do you have time” query in late May). I don’t begrudge the fact that you got busy, although I am disappointed that you didn’t have time to read the novel, because I was very much looking forward to what I knew could be an insightful and helpful critique. I hope we can have a working relationship in the future, and please know that I am available to read anything you want to send my way.

Keilyn commented that it’s easy to let things slip, even things one has committed too. This reinforces my suspicion that because I have an extremely high standard for myself with regards to things I’ve committed to, I put an unreasonably high standard on others. I apologise if anyone was offended by that. As Ken has far too often had to remind me, I expect too much of others, which is why I’m often disappointed.

Keilyn also suggested that might be time for me to find other critiquers who had more time to crit. I wrote a long rant yesterday about how hard it has been for me to find good, timely critiquers, but I’ve re-read it and I doubt it would be interesting or informative to anyone else. However, I will note that of the five people I sent BH to, only one is working full-time outside the home. Based on her private message to me about this whole issue, I believe that I have in fact overburdened her with requests to critique (despite her requests for me to send more), and I feel crappy about adding to her stress/workload. Two of the other people are full-time writers, which doesn’t mean that they have any more time in their lives than person #1. However, for me (let me emphasize: FOR ME), I consider critiquing to be part of my regular job of writing. And all five did agree to read the novel prior to my sending it to them.

I have no idea whether this feeble attempt at clarification will make things better or worse. I’d put serious money on the fact that if I called Albra and asked, I’d find out that Mercury is retrograde right now.

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We had a stellar time at the Getty. We hit bad traffic and thus missed the bookmaking demo, but we spent hours in the illumination exhibit. I found several examples of kneeling cushions (‘though none seemed to be embroidered) and made sketches of a gorgeous cotehardie/surcoat combo (with a band of gold on the upper arm with tassles? gold beads? dangling down). The talk was very interesting—we learned about some of the political statements being made in some of those otherwise innocuous Books of Hours—and the speaker was great.

I’ve made a reservation for the costuming lecture on 7 August, and am currently casting about to see who else is going so we can carpool. Ken won’t be able to go, because…

…the Korea money _finally_ came through, and he’s headed off to Korea on or about a week from tomorrow (Sunday).

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So for all of this nasty funk that I’m in about writing, I’m falling asleep each night to scenes from an upcoming book. Yes, I know I have to edit BH (if I decide it’s worth it—welcome to my funk), and finish AETW, and hopefully ALNM as well. But this one keeps grabbing hold of me. I have characters, a hint of paranormal, a kidnapping, repressed memories, secret passages, evildoers and misguided people, a sultry summer on Lake Champlain… If I pull out of this funk and decide I really do want to be a writer (after working on that plan for the past 25 years), what I may do is use New Book as an incentive: I get to work on the plot after I meet my other writing goals for the day.

I know, I know, wasn’t I the person all fired up about AETW recently? I’m sure once I dive back into it, the enthusiasm will ramp up.

Two more eps of “Angel” tonight. I’m really amazed at how many we missed first season. But it’s actually quite nifty, because it’s like a whole new season!