Topsy-Turvy

We’ve had pouring rain since yesterday afternoon. It’s funny – the stucco gets so drenched you can see the crack-repair material, which is usually invisible.

So, when I was in high school, I was on the Speech & Debate team. Yeah, I know – but you all already knew I was a nerd. But hey! I lettered in speech. Got my green and gold O. Of course, I had no jacket to sew it onto, so I stuck it on my bulletin board with the Octagon Club awards and horse-show ribbons and did I mention I was kind of a nerd?

At any rate, I competed mainly in dramatic interpretation of drama and poetry, plus a memorable stint in duet acting. Overall I did okay. I qualified for the state competitions a few times, but never the national ones. One of the things I noticed, though, was that I was absolutely incapable of knowing when I’d done well in a round. Usually we’d compete in three rounds of 5-6 people, then, if we did well enough, advance to semi-finals and finals. Inevitably, when I thought I’d done badly, I’d won. And when I thought I was great, I’d actually bombed out.

I have no idea still, why this is.

But I’m noticing it with writing, too. Blog posts give pretty much instant feedback, compared to other kinds of writing. Often when I think I’ve posted something clever or interesting, I’ll get bupkis response. And frequently the posts that I fear are muddy, or when I’ve maybe ranted or whined excessively, end up being the most popular and passed around.

I’m seeing it with the stories, too, some. Petals and Thorns was loved in a way that Feeding the Vampire wasn’t as much. Early responses to Sapphire are different than I expected. Not bad – just different. I’ve heard other authors mention this, that sometimes the books they love languish and some of the less-heartfelt books end up selling spectacularly well.

Clearly there’s just no saying.

In speech, I used to try to predict given the reverse logic, but that was never a sure thing either. Sometimes I knew a bomb for what it was. Sometimes I nailed the round and felt it.

This is why I believe in editors.

8 Replies to “Topsy-Turvy”

  1. Hey, I lettered in Drama! Got my blue and silver “J.” Sewed it onto a sweater and wore it proudly for, oh, about two weeks. *grin*

    I know what you mean about not always recognizing what’s going to appeal to readers. Some blog posts I really work hard on fail to make an impact; others that I blow out of my nether region at the last minute get a surprising number of positive responses. So weird. Guess you never know what’s going to strike a chord. But c’est la vie. Just gotta roll with it, I guess.

    1. Roll with it, yes, Linda. What else is there to do? Besides appreciate that what we yank out of our nether regions isn’t necessarily sh*t. 😀

      Hey, wear that blue and silver J proudly!

  2. Band nerd here and captain of the Quiz Bowl team. For band, we got a nifty musical thing as a letter, but I did get the blue & gold G in Quiz Bowl. Go Martians! (Seriously. That was our mascot.)

    After all these years, I try not to have any expectations. Every time I think ‘wow, this is a really good story’ and it doesn’t sell, or I think ‘this agent will love it’ and it gets rejected, it hurts worse than if I don’t expect anything at all. So I don’t.

    1. Captain of the Martians! Whoa, B.E. – you win the nerd contest. Very sad tales on the rejections, though we’ve all been there. For balance, how about when something was surprisingly well liked?

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