Blowing the Dust Off

So my truck got booted today. I hate $50 fines. This one was particularly timely, in that it came at the most financially inconvenient time.

So I was the third wheel of the tail end of a date last night. We played Starcraft, the three of us. It was epic. Afterwards we all g-chatted to each other, all of us sitting at this little table with our laptops, all within slapping distance of each other (and yet we're chatting online). Is there something ridiculous about this, even ethically wrong? (And I don't mean playing Starcraft during a date, because that is Undisputably Awesome.)

In other news, I was a panelist for one of the sessions for the Association for Mormon Letters annual conference. The turnout was not large, so it was fairly casual. (Our session coincided with Brandon Sanderson's session, who is writing the last Wheel of Time novel. You may have heard of it.) This was a marked occasion nonetheless, as it was the first time that I ever read an excerpt from my novel out loud (or allowed anyone else to discern its text). It received an encouraging response.

The creative process is very interesting, psychologically. You create this mammoth of a thing, knowing full well its potential for greatness as well as its many flaws. And so before you Reveal It To The World, you struggle within yourself to decide if what you've written is good or bad. Was it your best? Are your expectations for yourself too high? Is it better than you think it is? Are the mistakes minor? Are they egregious? I suppose that these are all questions that an author would like to resolve for himself personally before unleashing his manuscript so that his honest, critical analysis is not too easily swayed by the potentially fickle and careless comments of the masses. (Not that I expect full masses to be poring over this stuff, but you understand my intended meaning.)

And then there's the whole idea that after spending so much effort and energy on something, you don't want anyone to tell you that it's not great (even if it isn't.) That's why, I suppose, being a writer requires you to be tenacious. You have to steel yourself against rejection and criticism (because the alternative is to ignore it and remain on the same plateau of mediocrity).

Anyway, so having finally read a bit of it to somebody somewhere, it made me rethink my novel's Back-burner Status. Maybe it would be worth it to open it out for reading as a way to motivate myself to edit it.

Well, hooray for random blog posting. I think my main point here has something to do with the creative process and feedback, and how much I hate $50 fines.