In spite of a small amount of mockery via private e-mail, I'm still taking yesterday's post seriously. It may sound trivial to those of you more accustomed to writing stories not full of faulty scenes and failures of characterization, but it was a Major Revelation to me.

I have a lot of M.R. when I'm writing and I like to share them with you as they occur to me. (You're meant to read them and be grateful you're not me.)

I made two people read the opening scenes of the S.E.N. this weekend. They claimed an inability to see what I was worried about*, which is what led directly to the M.R. The fact that I may one day soon be enabled to cease whining about this monster is attributable directly to their kindness.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, as the case may be, for my writing, I bought a couple of new books this weekend. Yes, books on writing, but less "how-to" books than just essays by writers. As it turns out (did everyone but me know this?) this painful struggle to construct a story word-by-word is not a sign that I'm a hopeless incompetent who should take up breeding tulips or painting garden gnomes as a hobby. It's the way most professionals write, in fact.

Which is, now that I contemplate it, a rather depressing piece of knowledge. Yes, I do understand that if writing were easy, everyone would do it, but I didn't realize that that axiom meant that writing is actually, you know, hard.

Really, really hard.

Really, really, really hard. Having an eight-to-five job is a picnic by comparison.

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* removed on account of rudeness

The problem, and yes, I know this is supposed to be short because it's by way of a footnote thing but it's my blog so shutup is in the romance. Or, I should say, in the lack of a consistent romantic storyline. That part of the story just never came together (so to speak).

It's been a long, long time since I tried to write. Four or five years. Unfortunately, the brain cells that died between then and now seem to have been the ones related to writing a love story.