It\’s good to be meeting people who write all the time and read all the time too. Everyone who is part of the great swirling mass of text and information that is the on-line writer\’s community seems really friendly and welcoming and the are all willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and to give you their constructive criticism. When you ask your friends who don\’t write it\’s great to get good feedback from them but they just don\’t truly understand what it is you are looking for from them when you ask them to critique a work — the are afraid to hurt your feelings and sometimes you need them to; who hasn\’t sat down and read an early piece and wondered at how self-indulgent they are capable of being? If you write and you deny that then you\’re a liar. Writing is by its very nature self-indulgence, but if you can produce something good out of it then you might be excused any comeback on that.
