In Which I Find Myself In the Depths of Despair.

The writing journey is full of ups and downs. This afternoon I feel like scrapping Puddleby Lane. Especially after some people have suggested I do just that with my first chapter. BWAHHHH! :'(
If it was a real manuscript and it was the dead of winter, my story might already be smoldering in the flames of the wood-stove.
The criticism was that I started off too slowly. I know that. But what do I do with that? I don't know. And so I am rather in the "depths of despair" to quote Anne Shirley. Someone said it quite well below. *Sigh*

"I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within. "
Gustave Flaubert

"People are certainly impressed by the aura of creative power which a writer may wear, but can easily demolish it with a few well-chosen questions. Bob Shaw has observed that the deadliest questions usually come as a pair: "Have you published anything?" – loosely translated as: I've never heard of you – and "What name do you write under?" – loosely translatable as: I've definitely never heard of you."
Brian Stableford

"Many books require no thought from those who read them, and for a very simple reason; they made no such demand upon those who wrote them. "
Charles Caleb Colton

I feel slightly better already. Oh dear. I can't use "slightly". It ends in "ly"--yet another trouble-spot for me. Let's do some cheering up, slightly "I know better than you" quotes ;)

"One nice thing about putting the thing away for a couple of months before looking at it is that you start appreciate your own wit. Of course, this can be carried too far. But it's kind of cool when you crack up a piece of writing, and then realize you wrote it. I recommend this feeling."
Steven Brust

"Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self."
Cyril Connolly

"Forget all the rules. Forget about being published. Write for yourself and celebrate writing."
Melinda Haynes

"My purpose is to entertain myself first and other people secondly. "
John D. MacDonald

"Write something to suit yourself and many people will like it; write something to suit everybody and scarcely anyone will care for it."
Jesse Stuart

"I learned that you should feel when writing, not like Lord Byron on a mountain top, but like a child stringing beads in kindergarten - happy, absorbed and quietly putting one bead on after another. "
Brenda Ueland

I think I am sufficiently cheered up that I can go shop for pie-making supplies in peace. I won't think about my story. I won't talk about my story. I won't even let the critique-groupers' suggestions bother me. They are mostly true anyway. It's only because my pride is squished that it nettled me at all. The people are only trying to be helpful. My poor little baby that got it's imperfect nose commented on is just a little fractious. ;) Maybe I'll find this quote comes to fulfillment while I do all this "not thinking about it" :P

"Moving around is good for creativity: the next line of dialogue that you desperately need may well be waiting in the back of the refrigerator or half a mile along your favorite walk."
Will Shetterly

With the woes of many another writer filling her brain,
Rachel