The thing that upsets me is that… It’s funny. I know it upsets me because I wrote that and then had to stare off into space for a while just trying to avoid talking about it. But here it is. The thing that upsets me is that I think I’m this good a writer. Like when I’m firing on all cylinders and I have insightful beta readers, I can make things, let’s say x awesome. But there’s always an editor who could make it x+y awesome.
I can never do +y by myself. Which is fine, if I have an editor. But what if I don’t often get an editor?
I just feel like my best is not quite good enough to get me where I want to go. Like out there, there are just a lot of writers who are x+1 or x+2 and they get shots I want.
Which is kind of a roundabout way of saying that the meeting for Project X went well. He has some sure ideas for what it will be and how to get the project there and how the project needs to open up at the end of my part. I’ve written something that wraps up nicely, which is fine for one kind of thing, but we’re going for something else, so someone has to die, and that person has to be seduced a little better.
I had a good laugh at that. He was all like “It went all Showtime here. Like one minute they’re talking and the next minute they’re having sex.” But he brought her dinner! At my age, dinner and conversation is about all it takes. Foreplay. Bah. No, he’s right. It just struck me as funny. Dude, the Thai was the foreplay!
And I think we’re going to change another part a little to finesse the themes. Plus change the framing material to fit the vision of the project better. Which, you know, kind of makes me want to throw up and kind of thrills me.
But I think it’s going to be good. I’m excited and overwhelmed.
And I’m glad I’ve kept K. in my back pocket to look at it last. I don’t know why that brings me peace, but it does. I can finish everything up, get it to the point that C. wants it, and let K. make sure it’s beautiful and right.
And then, I don’t know. I’m fretting the fuck out of the next parts–where the artists get involved–but they assure me it will be fine.
Tiny Cat Pants 
I’m nowhere near being published — at least nowhere near having fiction published — and I completely understand where you’re coming from. Looking objectively at one’s own work is almost impossible. Most of the time I write with a litany of “this is horrible” running through my head because if the writers I respect must think their writing is flawed, mine must be shit. (Nick Hornby said that all writers hate their writing, so at least I’m in good company?)
“It went all Showtime here. Like one minute they’re talking and the next minute they’re having sex.”
Like there’s something wrong with that?
I know, right? He brought her Thai food. Realistically, they could have gone from “Oh, you brought dinner?” “Yes, Thai” to sex as far as I’m concerned.
It’s hard to judge your own work and hard to know how it stands in comparison with others. When I get rejected, I always wonder if it wasn’t good or if it wasn’t the editor’s thing. I like to sooth my ego with “it wasn’t her thing,” but I’m convinced it isn’t good and I can’t make it better. With everything I write.
It’s a really terrible stupidity.
You’re delicious and I love you.