Monday, September 10, 2012

woo-hoo-done

I had an absolutely crazy week last week. It was a good week, but so many unexpected things piled up at the same time, which spilled over and took over my weekend as well.

BUT, today I finally saved 'Brake Fluid', and all my major/necessary changes have been completed, which scraped in at 54,172 words.

I also sent it out to... (hang on a second, my brain is a little fried...) ... SEVEN now EIGHT wonderful people who have agreed to read/shred 'Brake Fluid' into itty-bitty-scraps. ...and maybe three more later who (I know) are very busy at this moment and might not want to plough their way through this story until their schedules free-up a little.*

Now, this is a first for me. Sure, I've handed over full manuscripts to my local writing group before, and worked with online CP's on a dozen or more occasions... but I've never sent a single story to so many people at the same time...

And it makes me really excited :)

Before, I was always leery of sending out unpolished work 'cause that horrible voice in the back of my head would whisper that I messed up something big, and someone was going to laugh. Even though I've got a pretty good poker face, it took a long time to even be comfortable handing work to my writing group and getting feedback on all my idiotic, dyslexic slip-ups/mistakes. I could really only handle a few people reading my work at a time. I'd brace myself for impact, endure it, then suck it up and get to work trying to patch holes and blast-out unnecessary sections before taking a deep breath, and letting one or two more people shred it to bits.

I feel very grateful for this online community of writers who all let me in, were friendly, chatty, and encouraging, even when I posted first-draft-sketchy-writing.

Thanks everyone :) It's 'cause of you guys I managed to take this (bigger) step.

Sure, I'm still apprehensive that someone's going to find something huge, glaring, and un-fixable in 'Brake Fluid'**, but at the same time, I'm hoping all those wonderful readers will find all the awful problems so I can continue to improve. The desire to make my writing better now outweighs the fear of getting laughed at.

I'm up for the challenge :)

So slap me with a rolled-up newspaper and say, 'bad writer!' whenever I need correcting :)

You guys are awesome.

Thanks again (in advance ;p).



* I've sent it out, so if you think you should have received it, and didn't, please send me an email.
** ...or worse, tell me it's flat-out-boring

15 comments:

  1. Congratulations. Boy, sending your work to seven people. I would only ever do two max...usually one. That's just too many voices to listen to.

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    1. Somehow, I'm actually more excited about getting all the different voices. I always get *stuck* when I've sent it to two people... and they disagree on what parts work and what parts don't.

      Getting a wider view, with a wider set of feedback, I think this will be an invaluable experience ;)

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  2. I got your email and I'm really excited to read it :)

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  3. LOL. Comes a point we have to put aside "ego" and allow ourselves to be crowned with the "stupid" hat, eh? I held one reading with about 20 betas, and man was that eye opening. Good though. I never would have wanted to query without it. I'm excited for you. Enjoy!

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    1. Thanks!

      ...and yes, being dyslexic, I'm usually pretty good at putting ego aside and expecting a lot of problems, but it's still always hard ;)

      It's 100% worth it though :) Which is why I'd always rather hear the criticisms instead of compliments (though those are also nice in small doses)

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  4. Congrats!! I hope all your CPs have lots of great feedback for ya. Then on to revisions :)

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    1. Love those revisions ;)

      Seriously, if I wasn't dyslexic, I would have totally pursued a career as an editor ;)

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  5. Excellent! Just finished a revision myself. Great feeling having it done, isn't it? Like having a weight taken off your shoulders. :)

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  6. having one of us find a glaring error or boo boo is better than and editor finding it. You'll get 7 very different reactions so remember go with the gut

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    1. Gut OR my reason, since I plan to write up all my comments as if I was Harold Bloom, literary critic extraordinaire!

      (I think this is the one of the worst ideas I have ever had.)

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    2. @ Sue

      ...or in the case of "SO", finding out the entire narrative should be re-done... so yes, having you guys discover major problems like that is certainly the goal here :)

      @ Alcar

      ...that both scares and intrigues me... also, I'm curious what kind of verbal delivery you'll use to impart your wisdom unto a lowly wretch like myself :)

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Type me out a line of Shakespeare or a line of nonsense. Dumb-blonde-jokes & Irish jokes will make me laugh myself silly :)