Blow your own trumpet

I shall start, since my own ego-stroking was what started the thread...

There's a scene in With The Band that still makes my breath catch every time and makes me think, "Whut? I wrote that??"

Basically, the two main characters are backstage before a concert (they're musicians). For various reasons, they really can't be together, but they can't resist each other. With a few minutes to go before they go onstage, he kisses her. At one point, he breaks the kiss and says "We shouldn't be doing this", but cuts himself off by kissing her again. I just like it because of the "I know we shouldn't, but I can't not do this".

There. I've stroked my own ego. In all seriousness, this thread is a great idea: I think it's good for people to stop and let themselves be proud of stuff like this...it's so easy to get down on yourself for writing something that isn't spectacular, but everyone has their "Wow, I wrote that?!" bits.

C'mon everyone...out with it.

I have one chapter that has never cried for much editing. It's slow, nothing exciting happens, just a little character development. The angsty young MC, feeling especially out of place and inadequate after an unintentional remark embarrasses him, spends some much-needed quality time with an older character in a quiet setting. I think it leaves a good warmfuzzy, best summed up in one sentence near the end, in the MC's thoughts: "Nothing was out of place, merely unfinished--a bowl, open at the future end."

I had a detention last weekend. When it was over, I wrote a fantastic essay on my experiences during the detention...and the people I shared them with. When I was finished, I ACTUALLY gave myself a 'way to go' punch in the shoulder...I was THAT pleased with the outcome!

Outside of fiction and poetry, I had three papers published in scientific journals this past academic year. Good science, top-notch journals, good scientific writing (which is way different than our kind of writing). This horn blows a different kind of creativity than the fiction horn, but its tone is just as pure and its contribution to the body of information easier to measure. I'm always proud of my scientific publications because they reflect original, careful, and hard work. Best, there is no doubt they break new ground, even if the clods are small ones in the overall landmass of science.

I've had some success in the fiction arena as well, but I've been blowing that horn elswhere around here. In my newest novel, Imola, I had a particular challenge in dealing with external and internal dialogue, and I think I came up with a cool solution. I won't be specific because it might be a bit of a spoiler. The ARCs should be heading to reviewers right about now, so I'll probably get feedback on how it works soon. I'm naked on the corner once again...

All this horn blowing has caught my attention.

I blow my own horn and I'm sure people think it's ego. That's okay because I'd rather that than stay silent about something I believe. I believe I wasn't just meant to write--I think I'm damn good at it.

People may disagree, but that's okay too. I believe that to be a matter of taste rather than anything else.

I don't want to stay in the shallow water, I want someone to challenge me. If my boasting bothers you go to SYW and beat the shit out of my writing.

I'm bored with good, there are enough good writers in the world. I want to be great if that's possible. Sitting around protecting myself with phoney crap like "I don't think it's any good." or "It needs work." is self serving.

"This is my best effort, I think it's great." that'll get you some critique--that'll make me a better writer.

I play guitar.... badly.

... I sometimes get this surge of confidence you describe at the end of my works when it no longer matters that I have gotten into the zone, because there is in fact little more to be written. I kid you not :-(

I put what I thought was my best work in SYW memoir and people loved it--then some critique came in and I settled in on a lower step for a second.

"Bit of an info dump here..." and "Past tense-present tense problem there..."

Nonetheless the critiquers liked it, so I went back to work. That's how this thing works.

My wife writes some of the most incredible poetry I've ever read--she subbed to The Guardisn twice and won contests both times--But she wont share her stuff--she's terrified of critique. It's fucking annoying to me that the world would suffer because people are trained to crap on themselves.

That's where it lay for me. I was put down long enough that I started believeing it.

Screw all of you, until someone says "Wayne you're really not that good..." I'll think stick with liking my work. Liking it makes it better. (a little douchey at times) but better.

Like the big unattractive woman who puts on her best dress andf heels and goes out on the dancefloor "Fuck you, I'm beautiful, ansd I don't care who thinks otherwise."

She's the sexiest woman in the place.

So I guess it's sexing up my writing.


I really need to get busy on that erotica memoir.

I prefer to allow other people to blow my horn for me.

But if you have no confidence in yourself how do you get them to do it?

My short story made the short list of a local contest. The last time I made the short list (I place 2nd two years ago), I was asked to write a blurb on what the story was about. When I thought about the blurb for this story, I realized I had a pretty deep theme embedded in it. I thought, cool! I did that.

Toot toot.

My wife used to hide her poetry from me in what looked like gay porn files.

That's how she found out I'm bi-sexual.

If that was a true story it wiould be great.

"Other than all that, how did you like my poetry?"

"The cabana boy loved it dear."

I like my work and I'm always proud of it, even if others don't happen to love it.

Tune in next week for answers to questions I can't post in this forum.

It's occurred to me recently that I'm best when I'm writing comedy. That's when my writing REALLY pops. And when I keep it sleek and not too wordy...yeah, it's good. I can do the serious stuff, but comedy is where I shine.

It's weird, but the stuff I like everyone else hates and the stuff I hate everyone loves. Obviously I have no clue what is good or bad. I should just retire.

My first full length horror script. I wrote it last year, I'm still modifying it but by the essence of it, I had one of those moments of feeling "there" with my writing. Like I'd crossed some invisible threshold in my writing. It was such a fun and neat feeling.

Well, I have this thing where my last YA was just out and everyone seems to love it. Which freaks me out (yes, neurotic writers and all that...). The language gets special mention by almost every reader, they think it's so magical, amazing, how did you do that etc. Which has me end up thinking well, how did I do that and how will I ever be able to do it again???

Then today, as I was getting ready for today's work (a new YA fantasy set in the same world but not a sequel) I took out the recently published book to read through some places to see if I can find that tone, that language again. And I found myself thinking "What, this? This is nothing special! This comes easy to me. I can easily do it again, and better!"
And I liked feeling that way.

I'm working on some notes for something that I'm trying to develop into an actual outline and I wrote a bit of stuff to get a feel for it. When I re-read a certain line I thought "oh, that's just lovely." I can definitely come up with a beautiful sentence or turn of phrase, even if I'm not sure where it belongs yet.

And this probably counts as outside validation, but I'm still kind of giddy that I won Jenny Rappaport's 140-character microfiction contest a few weeks ago.