I'm waiting for the coffee to finish brewing.
I'm learning to be okay with my fears in regard to letting people other than people I know read my work.
The thought of that feels like standing naked in a spotlight, at night, in a cold, wet drizzle, with a slight breeze, in front of an old brown brick wall (No, I don't know why a brown brick wall, I'm just going with what my brain is projecting)... and it's muddy. Not standing-in-puddles muddy, but that kind of muddy where you think to yourself, "Hey, that look like the consistency of face-mask mud." Instead of rifles just out of line of sight, there are people (with my face, I'm sure of it) waiting to jeer in all the colorful ways people jeer when they read bad fiction.
Defensive humor, don't fail me now.
It feels like I'm running from a saber-tooth tiger.
When I read the critiques from my writing group I was grateful for the points they made, but it felt like a rabid woolly mammoth, foaming at the mouth, joined the chase (I like to be chronologically correct when I'm half-wake and over exaggerating.)
Most of my waking life I've been an editor, so I'm usually at the receiving end (how appropriate) of manuscripts that (hopefully) have been through all of this; The plot holes mostly filled, grammar and punctuation have been sorted out, adverbs and passive voice have been kept to a minimum, consistencies are consistent, etc. But there is something to be said when you've been immersed so much in your own story, that even though you're grateful for another set or 3 of eyes pointing out the obvious abysses in your story, there is an irrational bit of your brain that thinks, "I really wish humans were more in tune with this whole mind-meld thing. It'd make my life easier." But that's lazy and not really a lot of fun.
So as the coffee begins to take effect and my humorous nature throws a house coat in my general muddy direction, I will pull up my big-girl panties (comfy working undies), turn on some writing music, and get to work.
No comments:
Post a Comment