::whimpers::

God! Earlier this afternoon, I finished beta-reading a 46,000 word novel for crimsonquills that I've been working on for the past week. It was long, it was plotty, it had scorchingly hot sex scenes, and it made me squee like a giddy fiend in outrageously happy joy almost all the way through.

Ten minutes ago, I read shade_shifter's new House fic. It isn't even two pages long, has no plot, and the sex is only barely mentioned. But it is so powerfully, intensely, incredibly well written that it swept through me with the terrifying wrath of a flash flood and left me a beaten, shattered carcass by the side of my lacerated, blood-drained heart.

These two fics -- neither of which is yet posted -- could not be more opposite. One carried me to the ultimate heights of pleasure, and the other smashed me down on the lowest of emotional rocks. Yet, each of them is a pinacle of writing ability that left me breathless and aching for more, more, more!

God! I am the LUCKIEST beta-reader on the planet!

......

Of course, if someone wanted to rec me some nice, safe, sweetly comforting little fics right now to soothe my aching heart... I wouldn't object in the least. ;)

EDIT: Shift's angsty House/Wilson fic, The Way It Goes is now posted!