Not Fair

Vid Friday is on hiatus again this week.

I did something - not naughty; get your brain out of the gutter ;-) - that I've been putting off for a long time, something I didn't want to do but just had to.

I had to give up critting someone's work.

It's not something I wanted to do, not something I anticipated doing.  But I have to not only think of myself but of the person I'm critting.  It's not fair that I haven't gotten back to his questions about my crits (and I always have a ton of comments, lol).  It's not fair to leave him hanging, when he could be moving forward, making decisions.

And it's not fair to not be editing my own stuff.  See, I've got an increased workload here at work, and it's taking time away from my own stuff.  How could I then continue with the critting, if I don't have enough time for my writing?  Not fair all around.

I agonized over it for a long time, averting my eyes from his emails (not fair), telling myself I'd get back to him in a little bit (not fair).  And what's a little bit?  A day?  A week?  A month?

So I bit the bullet and gave him the bad news.  But I did give him books he might consider, including A Writer's Book of Hope, which really helped me get over my bout of the blues the past week or so.  (Hmm, that might be a good post in itself. :-))  And, no, I'm not going to shill anything in this post; I have that crap in a small box in the upper right of this blog. :-)

I also included a piece of software that touts itself as doing copyediting & proofreading, as far as software can go, that is (beyond Word's spelling & grammar checker, but it's still a piece of software).  Jury's still out on that, but it might be useful (and maybe yet another post, *if* I decide to buy it).

At least now he can move forward with his own story, and I can get back to my stuff - with a good conscience.

Fairness for both of us. :-)