Can't Handle The Truth

So I haven't been giving the people in my Fiction Writing class enough credit. On the bus ride up to Bjorklunden, I displayed some of my trademark "tactless honesty", the same kind of unthinking forthrightness that got me in trouble with all my Lawrence "acquaintances" a few months ago.

I told a girl in our class that her story confused me, and that one of the other stories we were reading had a better prose style. After re-reading her story while not on a bus, I have to admit that her prose is some of the best we've read so far, and that her ending is pretty sharp.

Of course, I'd criticized her story before I re-read it, and when I heard yesterday that she'd been complaining about me behind my back (Miss Bates, who was on the bus, says I deserved every word) I felt an little guilty for having been so rude. She's partially to blame, for her poor explaination of now-very-obvious things, but--still--I gave my verdict far too soon.

Ah, and here's where I can start to generalize all over again. I've made the same mistake with a few stories now, and (probably) with a half-dozen people as well. I pride myself in my assessments of character and fiction--really, I do, for whatever reason--but then I read too casually and judge too quickly.

Well, enough of that; this is an old vein, anyways.