Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Temper, Temper?

Nostalgia is like a grammar lesson: you find the present tense, but the past perfect! ~ Owens Lee Pomeroy

I discovered this morning that the funniest thing about having short, curly hair is what it looks like in the morning. And, no, I'm not taking a picture.

I'm working on building a new webpage from scratch. Many, many moons ago I ran a commercial website -- built by me (and hubby, but mostly me) from the ground up. But it's been so long I can't remember how to use FrontPage. So, I checked out a two ton book about the subject from the library. It's an adventure. It's also cutting in to my writing time in a dramatic way. Wish I could find some really proficient kid who wouldn't charge an arm and a leg to at least get the skeleton done for me. It's coming back a little at a time, but it's slow. Ugh.

And to think that I have an idea for a novel where the heroine is a website designer. Oh well, nothing like real life experience, right?

One of my writing friends, Charity, has been taking a class and posted about annoying the facilitator. One of the things he mentioned to her was that making suggestions to a writer is very, very touchy...

Do you think writers are touchier than "normal" people (although how someone who doesn't have stories in their heads can be considered normal, I have no idea)? Are we, as a rule, more tempermental? Is it artists of all sorts that tend to be more tempermental?

To be honest, I have found Charity to be quite level-headed and calm when it comes to most situations, so was surprised to find her accused of temperment.

I know, when I ask for feedback and get my stuff shredded, I have to step back for a minute (what do you mean my baby isn't beautiful?), but when I take a breath and look again, I can see that the comments were offered without malice and with the hope that they really help make my work the best it can be. Sure, I can have a flash of "temperment" but I try to keep it in my office.

Still, I wonder how many of you out there that write (or paint or act) have a tendency to be over-emotional? Just a little informal poll...

Have a great day!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I always think writers are better at taking criticism than most people because we are constantly putting our work out there, to critiquers, contest judges, readers, reviewers, editors. We have to be tough!!

Charity Tahmaseb said...

You know, we all have hot buttons too. A few of mine happen to be someone thinking I was lazy/didn’t follow the instructions. Obviously. ;-) I can have someone red-line my entry in a contest until it bleeds, and not care. Someone else can make an off-hand comment about something in my entry that will drive me nuts.

Anonymous said...

Sounds to me like the dude complaining about touchy writers is the touchy one.

I keep thinking I need to update some of my web stuff, but it's been so long since I've done any web work aside from the blog I'm not sure I could even manage it now. So it doesn't get done. :)

Allie Boniface said...

I'm not sure writers can really afford to be that overly emotional, not out front in public, anyway. Maybe behind the scenes, or behind the keyboard. But I've found that a thick skin is a requisite in this business.