The Edits Are Coming

I’ve recently finished another draft of my novel and sent it to my secondary readers aka long-suffering friends and family to edit. This is one of those times in the writing process that reminds me just how close fizzing excitement is to fizzing anxiety. They both have the potential to blow the lid off the soda bottle.

I’m a grown up with forehead furrows and opinions on the Oxford comma, but I still feel about my work the way a second grader feels about their art class glitter blob—or the way Gollum does about the one ring. I only hope someone stops me before I retreat to a mountain cave and start biting the heads off live fish. I’m allergic to fish.

I tell those secondary readers I want honest feedback—or I just let them assume that—but what I really want is for them to tell me it’s the next bestseller. I need honest feedback.

In this industry, they tell you that you have to have a thick skin. I say you can do it with a thin one, crepe-paper thin if that’s what yours is like, as long as you keep putting yourself out there. It probably, hopefully isn’t possible to run out of people to reject you.

What really matters is that, to you at least, your work is precious.