You win some, you lose some...

Still working on my adult book, which is why I'm not blogging enough to be an even vaguely respectable blogger. The plan was to finish the first draft by the end of the month (well, s'pose it still is, in theory) and then send it off to someone my agent knows. I thought it was all going well... but then my mother read it.

My mother, I should add, is a Real Writer and also a real-life salaried Creative Writing teacher, so I do tend to take notice of what she says. And what she said was, 'It's brilliant, darling!'

I was quite pleased, until it turned out that we were talking at complete cross-purposes. Unfortunately what she thought was happening in the book actually wasn't, and it was much more ordinary and predictable than that - so ordinary and predictable that she thought something else had to be happening, or why would anyone even bother? So, not brilliant at all, then. Actually rather boring.

The thing about feedback is that it has to make sense to you, the writer, before you can even begin to do something about it. Now, I don't think I'm being defensive, and I pride myself on taking feedback well, not arguing, just letting it sink in... but I just don't get it... leaving me floundering, because does this mean my judgement is so wildly off-the-wall that what I thought was the first draft of something quite promising is actually utterly conventional and insubstantial? And if so, what am I supposed to do about it?

On the plus side, I did have a nice review in the Guardian for Tyme's End. If not the effusive, gushing, fulsome eulogy that I was expecting, and is, frankly, only my due.

What do you mean, my judgement clearly is impaired?