Thanks everyone for your kind words and support.

Yeah, it's majorly depressing to hear "the vision is nice, but the other stuff is more interesting..."

I worked really really hard on this, especially since it veers somewhat from my usual style. I don't want everything I write to sound the same. I don't want to continually write the same essay over and over, with minor detail changes.

Part of the problem may be that the group "knows" my voice, and this piece is not written in that same voice. What bothers me is that all 6 people had the same reaction: stick to your strong points. That's like telling an athlete to exercise only their strongest muscle.

Usually I get home from critique and am excited about making changes for the better. However, the thought of changing my vision -- changing the whole focus of the piece -- just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I'm thinking I need to clean up the technical stuff (not too much, really) and then send it to a few more friends to critique (like BWS critique group for starters ) and specifically say: this is my vision. This is what I want to do. How do I go THERE? -- because if no one in the group got it, maybe there's something I need to add or change towards THAT end.

Although I hate to tell people what to look for before they read the piece, because that influences them.