I hope you don't mind...

(Just warning you, this post is basically me just whining about people I have to deal with--it probably won't even be that witty, I just think my roommates probably get sick of listening to me whine, so I should do it somewhere else)

For my creative writing class, we're supposed to submit 1,000 words a week for our workshop groups to go over in the second half of class. Collectively, (as in "as a group") we decided that we wouldn't mind if anyone posted more than that, within reason, as long as everyone still understood that the mandatory 1k was all that had to be read.

Now considering that I write that much in a day (on average), it's usually not a problem for me to find a thousand words to throw up on livejournal, and because of my word surplus, I usually post an additional 300 words or so, not expecting anyone to read all of it if they are really that crunched for time.

Now, there has been a gal in our group who has been posting 2,000+ words a week for the last week or two and that is a little extreme, but we talked to her and smoothed everything out. She didn't realize she was pposting that much and will now be word-count-conscious in the future.

And, as recently as this past Thursday, our professor reminded us that we are under no obligation to read anything more than 1,000 words, regardless of how many words someone posts.

So, with this in mind, I submitted my bit for workshop today like I was supposed to. Because I don't like leaving scenes unfinished (and its hard to do a decent, relevant scene in just a thousand words--that's only three and a half pages double spaced), I posted 1,500 words. I warned my group that my word count was a little heavy and added "I hope no one minds." Now, for me, that little warning was just a heads up to whoever was reading to let them know they didn't have to finish. I just figure, if there are people who don't mind reading a little extra, I don't mind recieving that little extra feedback.

Which was why I was a little suprised to find that someone had commented and said that she did mind. And from the tone of said comment, she minded a lot. Because apparently posting 543 words (yes, she must have copied my post into word to get the accurate word count) was far too many and she never agreed to read that much. She was quite short about it.

And all I could think was "Really? You're okay with reading whatsherbucket's extra thousand words, but you're getting short with me about a few hundred?" Granted, this particular member of the group and I have butted heads in the past. She doesn't like my protagonist, she doesn't like my dialogue, she doesn't like my characterization, she doesn't like my conflict. Basically, I'm not writing a story that would interest her. If it were on the bookshelf at a store, she wouldn't pick it up. And I'm perfectly okay with that. It's not for her. Somebody else is going to like it just fine. I can't please everyone.

And to be perfectly frank (and yes, you can be larry), what she writes doesn't exactly suit my fancy either.

(Of course, she has only read one-seventh of my total word count right now, so the fact that she complains about things that are explained in the other sixth-sevenths of the book doesn't exactly endear her to me)

What really gets me, I think, is the fact that she took the time to write that comment, when it'd probably take just as much time to read those extra 500 words. Maybe I just read fast, but I can usually read the five thousand (plus change) words I get from the group as a whole in under an hour--and I think someone else in the group has said something along the same lines.

I wrote her a polite (and an honestly polite--not the fake polite like in those notes I may or may not have left on my grammar homework) reply saying that I was just informing people of the word count and I never expected people to read more than they were required.

But I'm not going to change my submission.

And I'll probably keep track of how many words she posts in the future. Not that anything will come of it, but just because I like having the satisfaction of knowing she's just as much at fault as I am.

And all of this is probably why I should go to bed at midnight instead of staying up to finish reading books and checking my email and now writing relatively whiny and passive-aggressive blog posts.

I hope you all have a wonderful life and that you didn't mind my self indulgent whining.