Throughout most of this, I was wondering "Where's the horror?" but it followed through in the end.
This isn't one of my favorites, but it probably is the one I relate to the most. I think any writer has been through much of the emotional turmoil this protagonist has been through. "My work is so much further along than these other people", suddenly turns to "Oh my God, my work is dung!" after a critique. The first critique is always especially hard.
I did always think the advice "Write what you know" was a bit flawed. Maybe it's because the majority of my writing is in SF, fantasy, or horror, but since I haven't experience space travel, time travel, or creatures from the deep then according to this advice I shouldn't be writing about them. I guess I should go write stories about being a software engineer and listening/reading to fiction in my spare time. But I'm not sure those would be very captivating stories!
I did get a little frustrated with him when he was taking the critique so badly, but I won't say it's unrealistic. If this guy's ever going to be a writer though, he's got to develop a thicker skin than that. Actually, he sounded kind of familiar. I think I gave him a critique just today. Oh, there he is now. I wonder why he's carrying a hammer? I'd better go. I'll finish this post lat;lakjp;-=*%#&*(DFASJKhklasdf