Looking Back

I suppose I should qualify this post by saying, I know I am a stubborn woman. I sometimes think that is a good thing; I sometimes think it is a bad thing.

Right now - I'm leaning towards the good thing.

At class today, the teacher critiqued a couple chapters of 'The Other Side.' She still says it's very good and it still gives her the willies. That's fun. To give your teacher the willies.

She had only a couple parts she wanted fleshed out and then sat back, and with a grin - not a smile, but a full-fledged grin, said this work was so superior to the first MS I presented her way back in 2010. 

This should have (if I want to go to the 'should have' hell) caused a flurry of pride and hope. It did not. It made me a little upset. My stubborn streak rose ten thousand feet into the air and stayed there. I thought, it was a good book. I still want to try to get it published. I thought it was written very well indeed.

Being stubborn, I decided, with a hint of scraped pride, to look at the book again. I pulled it up in the computer, read the prologue, and thought, hm, this is good. A wee bit over the top in hyperbole and such, but still good. 

I'm afraid to look at Chapter One. *g*

I started writing 'Blue' because I wanted to learn POV. In the aforementioned book, I'd used a few POVs. My teacher/editor thought I'd gone way overboard with them. 'Blue' is turning out quite well, though it does not receive the same adulation from my teacher as does 'The Other Side,' but it is an entirely different genre. 

I'm going to look at Ch. One of the old MS and see how it is. I'm expecting to find it not quite as good as I thought, but I still think it will be good.

I do have difficulty thinking anything I write is less than stellar. Pride. I know it's a trait that's needed by a writer, so I won't beat myself over the head with recriminations, but I will try to approach the chapter with an open mind. And with the knowledge that I've learnt over these past many years.

Life is looking forward.