I stopped by to tell you how I love your Deerskin icon. Robin McKinley has always been one of my favorites.
Mine too, but another reason I've really, really been loving this icon is meeting so many McKinley fans! I known none in RL so it's always a treat to meet one.
I almost lost one of my first LJ friends when she asked me to beta and I didn't follow your rule #1. Although I loved the premise, the story she gave me had so many technical problems that my concrit became practically a rewrite. This led to hurt feelings and an abandoned story.
Oh yeah, I learned it the hard way, too. In my case, it wasn't a friend, so I was lucky there. It was in a workshop setting, and I just expected that everyone wanted as harsh a crit as possible because they wanted to get better. And while that may've been true, not everyone can take it without you buttering them up first. I resented that for a while, but then realized there shouldn't be anything wrong about that. It's completely understandable--writing is so, so personal, and haven't someone rip it up hurts, whether they're doing it to help you or not.
I think success lies somewhere in between.
Definitely agree. I find myself scrupulously editing my betas and bits of con crits, weeding out some things that are little that the author probably doesn't need to hear. There's only so much I can do as the person not writing the story. Luckily, the people I beta for do not make me want to rewrite their fics, because they're in general pretty fabulous themselves.
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Mine too, but another reason I've really, really been loving this icon is meeting so many McKinley fans! I known none in RL so it's always a treat to meet one.
I almost lost one of my first LJ friends when she asked me to beta and I didn't follow your rule #1. Although I loved the premise, the story she gave me had so many technical problems that my concrit became practically a rewrite. This led to hurt feelings and an abandoned story.
Oh yeah, I learned it the hard way, too. In my case, it wasn't a friend, so I was lucky there. It was in a workshop setting, and I just expected that everyone wanted as harsh a crit as possible because they wanted to get better. And while that may've been true, not everyone can take it without you buttering them up first. I resented that for a while, but then realized there shouldn't be anything wrong about that. It's completely understandable--writing is so, so personal, and haven't someone rip it up hurts, whether they're doing it to help you or not.
I think success lies somewhere in between.
Definitely agree. I find myself scrupulously editing my betas and bits of con crits, weeding out some things that are little that the author probably doesn't need to hear. There's only so much I can do as the person not writing the story. Luckily, the people I beta for do not make me want to rewrite their fics, because they're in general pretty fabulous themselves.