I’ve been thrashed and trashed for the last week to ten days by a friend (no, it’s not been in the comments).  I finally got sick of it and responded in kind, and now there’s nothing but silence.  I just want to share a few of the things that have been said to me recently.  Call it an airing of the dirty laundry.  These are all quotes from the same person who obviously thinks this level of deprecating honesty only works if it’s headed in my direction and not when the tables are turned.  I’m not saying any of this is untrue or unwarranted, but after more than a week of it, I got tired and fired back.  Now I get the impression I’m the bad person.  Well, I can take criticism and expect it, and I sure as hell expect it from my friends more than anyone.  But don’t lay your shit on me and then pretend its unacceptable when I call you to the carpet for it as though I’ve crossed a line you hadn’t already crossed a hundred times and then some.  All of this is about my writing and is mostly aimed at my blog.

“…alot of recent stuff has been crap. I nearly said as much a couple of times…”

Before I got thrashed for the short story I’m posting: “…but I haven’t sat down and read it…”

The response when I announced I was going to post the short story: “I was like, oh god what is this?”

“You tend to get all blowsy with all this description, that’s mostly tedious…”

“Stop trying to impress anyone with your vocabulary…”

“I was worried that you would just copy S King, not that I would know, mind, but S King doesn’t impress me…” (And don’t think the inference in that isn’t heard loud and clear.)

After agreeing to help me with my first manuscript and then being asked about the short story: “I’ve either lost interest or can’t stay up…”

“I’m not really going to cut you any slack you know…”

“…the blog gets verbose and sometimes pompous, which I dont’ like.”

Well, that’s all fine and good, but when I get tired of being beat over the head and return the favor (one would assume that would be okay if it’s coming from the other direction), don’t just drop me like a bad habit and pretend I’ve done something wrong.

Ugh.