Instead of enjoying the beautiful spring day taking place outside my window, I am sitting inside Supergenius HQ listening to Matthew Sweet and Liz Phair while trying to rewrite the Boobs Larue story. Stories for The Lofts’ Mentor Series are due Friday.

Rewriting is tough. Don’t let anyone kid you. Rewriting is tougher than writing the first draft. Making mistakes is easy. Having to deal with and correct those mistakes is not fun at all.

I’m resisting every urge in my body that is willing me outside with my new favorite thing, David Schickler’s Kissing in Manhattan. Since I am kinda sorta writing a book that is a series of interconnected short stories, I thought I should read some of those kinds of books. How do you like that for noncommittal?

Boobs is seriously flawed. I didn’t need to read through my class’ comments to know that. However, reading through the comments has not helped me stave off my slacker urges. If anything it makes me want to toss Jed right out the window and burn all my manuscripts.

Note to writing workshoppers everywhere: saying something like “I just feel the story wasn’t as exciting or funny as it could have been” is not constructive. Neither is “I’ve read a bunch of stories like this and you need to make yours more interesting.”

Gee thanks motherfucker.

Yes, I’m being a little bit bratty. But I can take criticism, especially if it’s given to help make my story better. Vodo ran out of ink scratching away at my story. Did I like everything he had to say? Hell no. I don’t even agree with all his comments. The difference? He’s actually trying to help.

Telling me to be funnier, more exciting and more interesting? That’s no help at all. That’s the kind of bullshit feedback I get on my marketing copy from the wonks I work with. “Make it sexxier, make it punchier, make it more, you know. . . ”

These are the very same people who will sit in a meeting and debate about whether “Buy now” is more intimidating than “Order today.” And complain that “Burn a CD” sounds too technical so we should probably say “Make a CD.” I am not kidding.

Really, do you want to sound like those people? No self-respecting fiction writer should be giving the same kind of feedback given by people in marketing.