(Market grump omitted here. I just want credit for omitting it.)
markgritter has thrown himself on the unexploded bars to make sure they're not substandard for our company tonight. He is a Hero of the Revolution once again.The Council of Alphas, as one of my friends in California is calling my alpha readers, are wonderful, wonderful people (and, as I assured said friend, I'm sure they hold all you sub-omegaloids in the highest regard). (Simpsons moment. Never mind.) They are reassuring me that Thermionic Night is not, in fact, the new Eye of Argon, and they're reassuring me that they will have Things To Say. This is the most superior situation possible. If they weren't liking the book at all, that would suck in some very obvious ways. But if they weren't spotting anything in it that they'd like to see fixed, I know it's not perfect, and I'd have to find all the dreadful stuff all by myself before passing it on to the beta readers. And clearly that would suck, too.
Writing novels. It's exactly like being an Olympic gymnast, except that you're allowed to have your friends working a crane to haul your ass over that vault at the crucial moment. Also not so many ripped calluses, so that's all to the good.
