Re: The Idiom - monthly online contest & publication for Short Story Writers
- From: Alma Hromic Deckert <anghara@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 23 May 2006 14:15:25 -0700
On 23 May 2006 11:59:16 -0700, "jimi71" <jimi71@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Feel better?<snippperoo>
Since you felt the need to look down from your pulpit and "edit" my
writing, I thought I'd take a whack at yours: ahem.
Here goes:
"I turn up at a lot of Science Fiction conventions."
-In a Klingon or Vulcan outfit?
As a pro, actually.
This is one of those professional writers who we told you about. You
know, the kind that hangs around here and chats around writing, and
then submits their work in return for actual money someplace that's
willing - and often eager - to pay them for it.
Sure, there are cons where costuming is more important than at others
- there are even conventions devoted to Star Trek where EVERYONE's a
VUlcan or a Klingon - but most of us turn up at cons dividing our time
equally between being there in a professonal capacity (i.e. being part
of the programming, taking part in panels, stuf like that) and
mingling with friends whom we don't see all that often EXCEPT at cons,
and most of us, even if we did try on a Klingon ridge or two in our
misspent youths, have long since stopped attending conventions dressed
as one.
You were doing pretty well, before you (as David pointed out) went all
out to be snippy, confusing a crit of writing STYLE with writing
CONTENT and being insulting about it. Saying something about your
placement of apostrophes, especially in a spoof "crit" (which you'd
know if you hung around here a tad longer) is NOT carte blanche to
respond with gratuitious sarcasm which is aimed to be deliberately
insulting. (It's less insulting than you thought, actually - mostly
the idea of turning up at a con with Vulcan ears tends to elicit a
giggle rather than a snarl).
<sigh>
I say, showing arrogance is a sign of insecurity - you shouldn't flaunt it.
It wasn't arrogance.
And that, by the way, is the first line of defence of someone who
really doesn't have one - flinging insults about.
You wandered in here with what I am prepared to think you honestly
believed to be a brand new original idea which you had just unpacked
ot of its wrapping paper and it was still bright and shiny and oooh,
so pretty. You were told, pretty politely I thought, that such ideas
had been shipping for quite some time, and that that big round thing
you were holding already had a name, and was called a wheel - and that
putting one on a picture frame wouldn't turn "exposure" into anything
valuable to a professional or aspiring professional writer.
You then chose to take umbrage.
I reiterate - start taking part in the group, join in the
conversations, and stop a knee-jerk defence in response to anyone who
doesn't greet the "shiny new" idea with a degree of enthusiasm you
might find to be appropriate. This is not the place to look for ego
stroking. Here, you will get (OKAY! OKAY! DON'T HIT ME, EVERYONE FROM
THAT LOOOOOONG THREAD ELSEWHERE!) the truth.
A. (at the very least, the sixty nine variations of truth as it is
filtered through the eyes of someone experienced in the writing and
publishing industry...)
.
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