h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Oh Bribrow,
I am so fed up. I have just read a short piece from my second novel at writers club and have had it slated by this american woman that goes to our club. She's just had her bit returned from a literary reader and has had it slated so badly that she's giving it up, but she had a damned good go at carving my novel up. I'm so miserable, although I know I shouldnt listen to her, after all other books dont appeal to everyone, do they? But last month when she wasnt there, everyone liked the bit I had written. Are you sure my writings ok - do you have faith in me?

Scribbler,
Was it good old Winston Churchill who said that the only thing dividing the English from the Americans was the language?
What does she know? Ignore her - but, when you re-write, maybe give her comments just a slight once-over. You never know. It may help.
Bribrow

It wasnt that she was criticising the piece, but she said she felt it was superfluous to the book - she's only heard one chapter so far! And when I tried to explain that it was a 'link' to a larger plot, she said it was a waste of the readers time to be shown this, when it was of no importance! But I argued, it was important, as it held other evidence that would come to light later and then she suggested a plot I could use and it was all I could do not to stand up and hand her my manuscript and suggest she wrote it for me. My italian blood was boiling and my usual british sense of fair play and reserve was about to slip - big time - when luckily one of the other members realised and changed the tack! If she'd said the bit was absolute rubbish, I wouldnt have minded. It was the trying to 'tell' me how to write 'my' book that struck me. Arrogant twit.