Final Feedback

Well, I received the final feedback for this draft of MMG last night. There will be much more when I start my rounds of queries. Jenny wrote up a great summary with an assignment. Maybe because I'm always harder on myself than anyone else would be comfortable being, it wasn't anywhere nearly as harsh as I thought it would be. Even with my thinking that she was delaying because it was such bad news.

I did wait until this morning to read it. Wanted to just enjoy last night with The Group. We have such a great mix of people now. All different genres and backgrounds, but it works somehow. I hope John decides to join us. He makes a nice addition.

Now I need to go buy a big 3-ring binder (part of my homework) so I can begin working on it this weekend. I'd start sooner, but this is shaping up to be a crazy-making week. Meeting last night (which was wonderful), meeting tonight for PPW, possibly a concert tomorrow night, barbeque at Jonnie and Steve's on Saturday (again, wonderful) and another meeting on Sunday (jury's out on this one). Oh, and maybe dinner with Geoff if he doesn't pick Saturday.

Think I may take Friday off just for me. Sounds like a plan.

Words

Part of the reason I write, and read for that matter, is because I love words. These made up things that respresent objects, feelings, thoughts and actions. We string letters together to make words and words together to form sentences and, next thing you know, we've created whole worlds that didn't exist before. Words, by their very nature, are evocative. They are powerful. And they can be hurtful and destructive.

I've written previously about finding exactly the right word. Ali suggested poetry as a means to really understanding and gaining expertise at that. I've heard other writers defend their use of extremely obscure words as wanting to use "the exact right word" to convey an idea.

However--

When does "using exactly the right word" become "showing off"? In responding to a comment on a previous post, I used stentorian instead of saying loud, booming, etc. It's a word that came to mind as the right one, but subsequent comments point to it being unfamiliar (although those comments may have been teasing). So, should I have said "loud and commanding voice"?

Would coming across one or two words you weren't familiar with throw you out of a story? I'm not talking about fantasy or science fiction where there are usually new words made up by the author. But even there I guess it could get annoying. How do you, as a writer, find that balance?