Tripping on my ego and landing in a gutter

[itsallovernow]

I have - semi-successfully - registered for Novel Writing II at UCLA. (I say semi-successfully because I orignially signed up for NW I based on the dates in the catalogue, ignoring the dates on the online registration and had to call and beg them to switch me). The courses say that they have a pre-req, but I feel fairly confident that I know enough about the definition and structure of the novel as an art form to slip into NW II without panicking. Much. Here's me, not panicking at real live people who neither know nor like me responding to my work. Here's me running to the toilet to throw up. Go me.

The Mitchell/Vala porn is posted. Yeah porn. And in that vein, I'd like to share two different responses from my fabulous betas at almost the exact same place - literally within a paragraph of each other:) It's proof that we bring ourselves to the table as both writer's and editors:


From kernezelda

Carefully, she works open the top, trying not to get any of the melted stickiness on her fingers until he nudges her aside, aware of her heat as he presses into her with his hip. He pops open the plastic lid, sets it down and sucks the ice cream off his thumb and fingers. (Are they eating with spoons from a common tub for everyone?? Ick! I sure as heck hope they dig out everything their spoons touched, or else throw away the vat. Ugh. Sorry, but that kind of sullies the mood for me.)

From cofax7

She takes the spoon from him, dips it into the unmarred surface of the ice cream and turns to rest her ass against the table. Something thunks as she settles into place. He steps closer and angles his head, peeks around her back. She arches, pressing her pelvis against his. [Okay, I'm confused by the geography here. Is he standing next to her? Or are they front-to-front? In which case, my response is "Cam, not in the *kitchen*!"] In her boots, they're nearly of a height. He tries not to take that thought further, tries not to think that he's already flicked on the engine, that right now he's just revving it up. He can't see much in the dim light, so he relies on other senses, tactile sensation, fingers brushing the curve of her ass as he fumbles at her back pocket, she shivers, rocks against him and he gains purchase, pulls a flask out from behind her back.

I just can't help but find it hysterical that C. is more bothered by placement and the whole kitchen thing, while Kerne's totally thrown off by the idea that they'd eat from the communal ice cream tub:) Hee. I totally adore my betas. And this is why it's always good to get an extra set of eyes:)

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_minxy_/]

That's awesome, both that you're taking the class and the beta experience. I have a friend doing the professional writer thing and sometimes I think she's missing out by not having a beta. I'm not sure why that doesn't exist out in original writing land. *shrugs* She runs things by me in an alpha way, but never beta. I suppose if she got something published (or whatever) she'd have an editor foisted upon her, but that seems to me to be a very different thing.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Oh, she'll definitely have an editor foisted upon her!! All of my professional writing has been edited. But for the novel, I'm very much planning on having it beta'd in stages along the way:)

[denyeverything1.livejournal.com]

Yay, novel writing class!

I really need a "Yay" icon...

I save my beta notes and go through them time to time because they cheer me up *so* much. To think people take the time to do it, first of all -- wow. And that, as you point out, they come at it from some very different and interesting angles, demonstrating the sheer variety of awesome brains in fandom -- it's so cool.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

It really is:) I had to fight with myself to throw away my Blue Eyes notes for Cofax because they were handwritten and they were HYSTERICAL:) And pointed, and very, very smart:)

Feldman leaves me beta notes on my voicemail, and I save them until the evil woman in my phone makes me give them away.

[cofax7]

Heee. Whereas I never even blinked at the ice cream.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Hee - it never even occurred to me that it might be unsettling to anyone:) Who wants to wash bowls? But it helped because I decided that Daniel might find the communal ice cream feast a little... icky:) ( I have no cannonical basis for this conclusion, of course:)

[cofax7]

Oh, hell no. Daniel will eat anything under any circumstances. He's doctor-I-grew-up-in-Egypt-on-a-dig guy.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Hee - then we'll consider it a way to disapprove of Vala:) (And I know plenty of archaeologists who have weird food things despite eating beans for months on end).

[kernezelda]

I wish you every success in your class. I didn't know you before I read you, so certainly it wasn't knowing you that made me enjoy your writing. It spoke on its own. Do you have to start from scratch, or might you use the novel you began working on several months back?

I keep all my betas, all the way back to hand-written from my zine days, to CK's beta of Future's End.

For me, the ice cream thing is of a kind with washing your hands before eating, brushing after, etc., a matter of cleanliness and non-contamination of shared food.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

I'm using the novel I'm working on:)

I'm pretty much in agreement on the shared food, but ice cream seems immune to that:) After all, the germs are just getting frozen. We're way too lazy for bowls in my house:)