Learning gap

I'm posting early, or maybe additionally, because stuff from this week is going to be overshadowed by the Chicago Games and a quick trip to MI.

Mostly I want to thank you guys for stepping up to help me. It hasn't been a fun process. I thought I had rhino skin at this point, but there are chinks in the armor. I've been laboring under the delusion that, because I wrote the SF trilogy with Scott, I knew how to write a book. But when I thought about it in light of the feedback I've gotten this week, I realized that even though I wrote book 2 without him, he was still the main plotter. I was more of an editor on those projects, especially books 1 and 3. The four HF books I've done in the last few years haven't gelled because I've missed some fundamental things about plotting. I've been trying to do algebra without having learned how to multiply. It's disheartening, but nothing new. I always feel like I'm further in my writing journey than I am. So it's remedial learning again. Once the missing pieces fall into place, those rewrites should be a lot easier.

I'm going to try not to be a pest. Please tell me if I become one. The ADD girl inside me sometimes doesn't recognize that other people have a life, and it's hard to keep her reigned in sometimes.

I have to say I've never written a scene that was so universally hated! Rather than sinking into despair, I'm going to channel my new knowledge into writing villains. I want people to hate them.

Thanks again, y'all, and I hope you'll let me try to return the favor.