I been stepping on the Devil's tail.

Oi. There is a reason why truepenny is my writing partner. Partially, it's because she's willing to put up with me. (As previously noted, I am Difficult.) But another reason is because we have very different working and thinking styles--she's linear as hell, and I'm about as inductive as it's possible to be and still string together a coherent sentence--and so we complement each other. I tell her when she's so on the nose it hurts, and she tells me when my strings of broken dialogue make about as much sense as Pink Floyd lyrics.

Look:

truepenny: Meanwhile, I've started [book title redacted for frank discussion of author's craft], and [author redacted] just makes me want to weep with envy.

matociquala: Does sie now? I've only read sie short fiction, and found most of it heavy-handed, but that book is on my to-read pile.

truepenny: I haven't read anything else of sie's, so I can't say how this stacks up, but I really like what sie's doing so far.

matociquala: Excellent.

Also, I have discovered that what I find heavy-handed, others find opaque. :-P

truepenny: This probably goes with the nonlinear thing.  Since what you find clear as day tends to leave me going, do what now?

matociquala: Quite possibly.

I am not having any of the problems with Vellum that others seem to.

OTOH, I also grok myth pretty well, and it tends to contradict and overrun itself in many places.

truepenny: I suspect you just don't need much connective tissue between bits of story.

matociquala: God knows, it's the hardest thing for me to learn to do. That and, yanno, 'splaining stuff.

I wonder if it's because I started reading grownup books so young. And not understanding them. But then later on I would get more of them. If that makes any sense?

truepenny: Well, I think it makes a difference in how *patient* a reader is with not understanding things.

But I also think your brain just works differently.

matociquala: I am willing to believe it. I never realized it was going to be such a handicap. *g*

truepenny: I don't think it is one.  It's the rest of us that are dumb.
 
matociquala: Hmm. I'm not sure about that. Because to me it often feels as if there are things I am straining to put into words, or silences, or patterns of images, or something... that are not amenable to that.

truepenny: Dunno.

It may be a matter of verbal vs. nonverbal patterns.

matociquala: Maybe...

Weird, because I'm totally verbal. But there's this stuff in my head that only goes in between the words.

truepenny: Yeah, but you're also really kinesthetic.

matociquala: Well, yeah but there aren't....

...words for that.

d'oh.

truepenny: See!

matociquala: *facepalm*

And this is why some of my stuff makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE to some people. And feels wonderfully grounded and real to others, and nobody can figure out why there's a difference.

Because all the emotional tells are kinetic.

Can I blog this?