I'm a writer, and my love is an ardent reader. Can I forgive her for criticizing my work?

When I inquire my woman astir the publication she’s reading, it’s a fixed I’ll walk the adjacent mates of minutes successful utter confusion.

Yesterday Ami responded to my query by saying her latest work made her “fall successful emotion with horses.”

The nighttime before, she’d been mislaid successful Andre Gide’s “Immoralist.” I knew the caller was astir hidden desires, but I had nary thought Gide had taken things into the stable.

After a batch of back-and-forthing, it turns retired she was referring to Cormac McCarthy’s “All the Pretty Horses.”

That’s due to the fact that immoderate publication I past saw her speechmaking has invariably been finished and replaced by 3 caller books.

She reads six books astatine immoderate fixed time. Classics to sci-fi potboilers. The latest bestsellers to past Greek poems. And she inhales them astatine a complaint that makes maine wonderment if she really has the occupation she claims to person oregon spends each time curled up with the Modern Library.

Her “ideal day” is to spell to the Iliad Bookshop successful North Hollywood, “visit” the feline who sits connected the registry and prowl the aisles until she finds 3 books to bring home.

Given that I’ve made my surviving arsenic a writer for 45 years, you mightiness deliberation it’s fantastic to person a spouse who shares an adoration of the written world.

Actually, it’s a torment.

Many nonrecreational writers bounds their reading. George R.R. Martin and Joyce Carol Oates “quarantine” themselves truthful different voices don’t creep into their work, arsenic was the lawsuit with McCarthy and J.D. Salinger.

Like my literate betters, I sometimes interest that speechmaking distracts maine from writing. But dissimilar them, I unrecorded with idiosyncratic who consumes words astatine an unimaginable pace.

When I spot my woman devour books faster than the popcorn she keeps wrong arm’s reach, I consciousness blameworthy — and envious. It jolts maine into remembering however overmuch I emotion the printed page.

As a kid, my favourite spot was room stacks. I’d brushwood my fingers crossed the spine of the books, arsenic if they were beatified artifacts. But implicit the years, I’d mislaid that delight. Nowadays, I walk much clip speechmaking friends’ screenplays than I bash literature. I began to envy however my woman could suffer herself successful words conscionable for the joyousness of it the mode I utilized to.

So, now, erstwhile Ami settles successful with a publication successful the surviving country chair, I bash the same. But I’m flustered by however relentless her absorption is. How rapidly her pages turn.

I cognize speechmaking shouldn’t beryllium a competitory sport. I truly do. But writers are competitory by nature.

I was irritated by however overmuch much she seemed to bask speechmaking than I did. The instant she finished a novel, she would extol its virtues and request we spell to the Iliad oregon the Last Bookstore to get the author’s adjacent offering.

Meanwhile, I was struggling to get done “Ready Player One,” a caller that had been collecting particulate for years. Not wanting to beryllium one-upped by my speed-reading girlfriend, I threw myself into it. As we laic successful furniture unneurotic reading, my sighs and muttering astir “frickin’ 3 cliches successful 1 paragraph” caused her to propulsion sideways glances my way.

I realized this showed a basal quality betwixt us. My woman finds thing to bask successful everything she reads. I, connected the different hand, tin beryllium nitpicky and hypercritical erstwhile I peruse the transcript connected the backmost of a cereal box.

Even worse is erstwhile she reads thing of mine. All I tin deliberation is I’m successful a wrestling lucifer with each the large writers she cheats connected maine with.

Last weekend, my woman and I visited the Valley Relics Museum successful Van Nuys, a repository of taste artifacts mostly from the ’80s and ’90s. Ironically, for each my complaints astir “Ready Player One,” it had inspired maine to suggest the visit. We had a fantastic time, strolling done the aisles and playing the vintage arcade games.

A fewer days later, lying successful bed, I made the mistake of mentioning that I’d written a 2,000-word effort astir however the memorabilia — the elephantine Bob’s Big Boy statue, the formed of E.T., the arcade games — linked to events successful my beingness successful unexpected ways.

“I would similar to work that,” Ami declared, her eyes not moving from the publication resting connected her lap.

The mode my bosom clenched up, you mightiness person thought she was a mugger successful an alley saying, “I would similar to person your wallet.”

Flop sweat collected connected my brow. I was up against her existent lineup of Doris Lessing, Ursula K. Le Guin and Frank Norris. That’s a daunting modular to beryllium judged by. And I americium truthful critical, I cognize I would person torn my ain effort isolated if idiosyncratic had handed it to me.

At the aforesaid time, I secretly longed to perceive her talk astir my penning successful the aforesaid loving tones that she mentioned different writers.

Given that written words are the mode I prosecute with the world, this seemed similar a captious infinitesimal successful our relationship. I work the portion implicit and over. Although it had been sent to my exertion agelong ago, I made galore tiny changes.

Finally, I emailed it the adjacent greeting and braced for a response.

Per usual, she finished the effort successful little clip than it takes maine to code an envelope. Her judgement was cutting: “Cute, but I’m not into it. So C-minus.”

I cannot pass however overmuch this hurt. It was similar a 100 insubstantial cuts to my soul.

If the idiosyncratic I cared astir astir successful the satellite despised my efforts, however could I anticipation that anyone other would similar it? Had I been a fool to give fractional a period to a trade I was incompetent at? Had I yet been recovered out?

Stifling my wounded pride, I typed retired a measured response: “So what precisely astir it weren’t you into?”

Her effect confused maine adjacent more. “Huh?” was each Ami said.

I looked up her erstwhile email and realized I had misread it.

She had written: “Cute. But I’m not successful it. So C-minus.”

And frankincense I wrote this piece.

As I said, I’m competitive. I simply can’t spell done the time with lone a C-minus.

The writer is simply a freelance writer successful Sherman Oaks. He received an A-minus connected this story; Ami deducted fractional a constituent due to the fact that it didn’t notation she’s hot.

L.A. Affairs chronicles the hunt for romanticist emotion successful each its glorious expressions successful the L.A. area, and we privation to perceive your existent story. We wage $400 for a published essay. Email [email protected]. You tin find submission guidelines here. You tin find past columns here.