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I am SO screwed!

I have joined a website that I hope very much will help me. I have no doubt, actually, that it can. I hope only that I will take the things to heart that I read there and not just give up. The website in question is Scribophile. It is designed to get peer review and editing of author's works. It is amazing! One of the things, however, that I have come to realize is that I have so very much to learn.

I was reading a couple of chapters to do a critique of a fellow writer's novel, or 'work in progress' (WIP). I was really into it. There were some things that I would have done differently, but I really liked where they went with it, and the plot has amazing potential and endless possibilities.

When I finished the two chapters, I came to the conclusion that I am WAY out of my league here. But, what the hell, I will offer a critique and correct some grammar and maybe offer a small amount of advice regarding a couple of word choices that I wasn't sure fit properly. I read a couple of the critiques that other writers had posted and I was blown away. They cut it to pieces. I thought it was good and they shredded it. Now, bear in mind that the critiques were respectful, but plain spoken. It was all very professional, in my opinion, but they mentioned a lot of things that I didn't even pick up on. The bad part is, many of the things they picked apart, I could see as being a problem. They were right.

In the writer's defense, the purpose of the site is to submit first drafts and get them edited so that  submission to a publisher or agent will be more likely to be taken seriously. That being said, it IS a first draft and there are likely to be a great many mistakes to be found in a first draft. It doesn't bother me that they found so much, or that they wrote lengthy critiques (that is the whole point, to get creative criticism and write better). What bothered me was that I didn't see hardly ANY of it. How am I supposed to be a writer or a teacher of writing as I one day hope to be if I cannot spot these things now? I am already starting behind the 8-ball, so to speak. I am getting started quite late in life to be just getting started. So much to do. I am more than a bit overwhelmed.

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