Ugh...

I don't think I'm going to continue with the Polishing program at BCC.  I think I'm going to take next quarter off.  It's just too much--too much anxiety and distress.  I'll take the $375 I save and pay someone to read my manuscript and give feedback.  Critique last night was like Tea with Torquemada: bitter and excruciating.  It enraged me and I couldn't sleep until 2:00 a.m.  I wanted to scream and bite and flame people with incendiary e-mails.  I resisted, however. 

One of the reasons I like to blog is because I enjoy brooding at the keyboard.  When I write fiction I have tried to train myself not to brood too much.  Sometimes I describe incidents and events but don't provide enough clues in the form of character reactions, to convey the emotional impact the events have on the characters.  If you think it's easy, try it sometime.  It's the same problem I had as an actor.  I could feel the emotion, but finding the right gesture, the right movement and action to convey the emotion to the audience was difficult.  A person who lives almost exclusively inside their own head probably can expect to have these problems, because one must live in one's own body.  And one's own body is the only barometer by which we put our characters' lives in context.