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Today’s post will be short. I’m very close to finishing my final self-revision of my novel before I start querying agents, and I’m so excited to get that process started.
Before I could get to this point, however, I shared my novel-in-progress with my husband to read.
This was an extremely nerve-wracking endeavor. My husband is a prolific reader, and he and I share somewhat similar tastes in books. I knew that he would be able to quickly see if the book was to his taste or not.
And that was what I was afraid of.
I was worried that he would not be able to follow my crazy plot. I was worried that he might find characters flat or not be able to follow their arcs. I was worried that he would find the story boring and not want to finish it. Or, maybe even worse, he would finish it and shrug his shoulders and say, meh, it was just okay.
On the other side of that worry coin, I was also wondering if he would not have anything critical to say at all. Would he tell me that it was the most amazing thing that he’d ever read (something I’d know would instantly be a lie), afraid to hurt my feelings?
So, I shared my manuscript with him and hid away in my room worrying away. It is at least practice for that time, if I ever do get published, when other people who actually read my book leave reviews and feedback about what they think of my story.
As he has made his way through the book, my husband has shared valuable feedback with me. He’s asked questions about things that I knew I would need to fix. He has also said that he finds it to be entertaining and a page-turner. And as I probed him with questions about characters, settings, plot points, my fears about him hating the book or being bored with it faded away. Because he was measured in his feedback, I also knew that he was not just blowing smoke up my butt.
His response has given me motivation and made me realize that having access to him as an earlier reader is beyond helpful. It's also given me great confidence to get back to that final set of revisions and get this book out into the world if I can.
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