Wow.

I am so blown away by the positive response that my latest chapter got. You know that scene in Moulin Rouge, where Christian is first singing to Satine, and she gets this stunned look on her face and then they’re off dancing in the stars and clouds above Paris–yeah, that’s me. I was positively giddy today–I skipped down the hall, much to the chagrin and bafflement of my more mature classmates (maybe I should go into peds, I’d fit right in there with the kids). I was checking my email every few minutes just to see if there were more nice things in my inbox. It felt like Christmas and my birthday and every other magical day there is.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!! I honestly wasn’t expecting anything like that. I really expected a rather lukewarm reaction, “damned with faint praise” at best. It’s probably not wise to trust my own judgments, especially since I had been staring at the same scene every day for about three months.

But it’s nice to be proven wrong too.

And I tell you, flattery is the best medicine for a ill muse–she perked right up and I had about a dozen brain whirl-winds this afternoon about the next couple of chapters. I’m sketching the ideas, working them in and I’m really excited.

Oh, and to answer some of your questions, Marissa: I have been trying to work the chronology so that it would correspond to the six weeks that ASP established. I believe as it is now, we should be around the beginning of week five. The next two chapters will be taking place during that weekend, and then the last two, the following week. But I’ll go back and see if I can clarify the timeline a bit.

You wrote: “I don’t know if she was confused of her feelings for him as much as she was confused as to what to do.” Maybe we differ on perspectives here. I’ve always read Rory’s actions as being attractive to Jess, but then spending the majority of her time convincing herself that she wasn’t feeling that way. So when I wrote that part, I was trying to convey that Rory’s thinking to herself: ‘hey, since we’ve started talking, since I’ve come here, I really haven’t had the urge to kiss him, so maybe it was just his friendship that I was craving and missed and that was why I kissed him.’ Nevermind, that there’s the distance issue, as well as the fact that she refuses to analyze her feelings. Choosing Jess would mean hurting Dean and hurting her mother and at this point, even with Jess saying back in chapter 5 that she needs to make a decision, Rory’s still trying to find the “win-win” situation. We’ll see how long that lasts.

Long ramble. In any case, I’ll check that scene out again and see if I can spruce it up a bit so it’s a little more clear.

I do remember that there was a missing scene and I know I must have read about it some place a while ago. Hmm, was mine close enough to be considered (unintentional) plagiarism?

Anything else you want to know/discuss??

You know, I’ve been thinking about it… I had been pretty bummed that I was getting so little feedback on my stories. But you know, I’d rather have these few, wonderful, incredible reviews than a thousand of the “update! update!” Maybe I was in need of a change in perspective too.