m, maz-] | 1. | Psychiatry. the condition in which sexual gratification depends on suffering, physical pain, and humiliation. |
| 2. | gratification gained from pain, deprivation, degradation, etc., inflicted or imposed on oneself, either as a result of one's own actions or the actions of others, esp. the tendency to seek this form of gratification. |
| 3. | the act of turning one's destructive tendencies inward or upon oneself. |
| 4. | the tendency to find pleasure in self-denial, submissiveness, etc. |
Yesterday I spent over eight hours bashing my head on my keyboard over a line. That's right, one line of text. One sentence in my story that I didn't like and that I didn't know how to fix. True, I wasn't in physical pain except for my forehead, but the mental anguish was nearly unbearable. I believe somewhere into the seventh hour someone passed by my work station and kindly suggest that I quit.
I looked at him as if he were the lunatic.
Today I got a critique on one of my favorite stories that ripped it to shreds. The critique pointed out every flaw, every plot hole, every overused word, everything. (If she's reading this, she's probably printing it out so she can read mark my overuse of 'every'.) She brutalized my story until it limped back to me wounded and bleeding.
I loved every second of it.
Tomorrow I will probably start receiving the torrent of rejection letters I'm expecting from the submissions I sent out last September. (Its about that time.) Tons of people who looked at my soul, smiled politely, and said 'no thank you.'
I'll probably love that too.
Maybe I'm not a good example of the average writer, but surely I'm not the only one who loves a good critique, a personal rejection letter, or fixing a hard line of text. Does that mean I appreciate the finer points of pain? I don't know. What do you think?
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