Friday, May 7, 2010

Don't touch my peanut butter!

I made a comment about donuts on facebook because I've had donuts on the mind lately, and I was directed to this site, which enables one to make this wondrous creation:



I want it for my birthday. But then I would eat it all.

I've brought back Bringing Moon this week, which I haven't touched for nearly a year, after receiving more crits on it than any other story. I'd also posted it in 2008 right after I'd written it, then put it away for awhile after some rejections in rapid succession. The crits from last year were varied, but mostly insightful - a few people thought it worked as is, some had a problem with the clarity of the Margot's motivations, some had a problem with random elements that weren't the focus of the story, and others read things into the ending that made me think huh, that wasn't what I'd intended, but I like that better. Then I did some more submitting, only to have it fall flat again.

I pulled it out again on Wednesday and immediately realized it was the equivalent of a plain white sheet cake, maybe frosted, maybe not. But the stories that sell look like the cake above. Bringing Moon had been missing everything - color, life, and all of that good ganache inside Margot's head. Sure, it was cake, and I adore cake. But...yes.

So I've tried to chocolate peanut butter it up. It's better, although it hasn't worked for the 2 out of 3 crits so far, and all 3 didn't find the ending to be enough. I'm hoping it's a needs-to-be-less-subtle, thing. That's a likely bet.

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