There are a few things in life that make me ever so happy. One of them is when people are honest with me about my writing. When I ask someone to read a part of my book and give me their opinion I HATE it when their reply is “It was really good.” or “I liked it.” And when I ask them what they liked about it they either don’t answer or give some stupid answer! I also hate it when people tell me what they think I want to hear like “Oh my gosh that was so good. You’re so going to be a best seller.” I smile and thank them as I make the following retort in my head. “If it was that good I wouldn’t need to edit and I could send it to any old publisher and get it first shot.” Yeah right. I know my writing needs improvement so tell so! Tell me what I need to fix. Tell me what you think is boring. I might disagree so be prepared to tell me why it’s boring. And I love the people that can. The AMAZING people that tell me just how it is. What has prompted this rant? Simple. I sent my friend Ryan the first ten pages of my manuscript and asked him to read it and tell me what he thought. He highlighted sentences that were stupid or needed rewording. He was right on each sentence. Now I would never have been able to catch that. It’s just not something I catch in my writing. And the icing on this cake that makes me want to hug this kid is the comment he puts in the email (hope it’s okay I’m posting it) “I also thought it was very fast paced and interesting, but I caution you to take risks that differentiate your tale from other stories in the fantasy genre, otherwise it becomes a tolkien rewrite, I know you know this, but try to be original, (but not stupid original) Make your world your own.” Made my f***ing night. Why can’t more people say things like that to me?
Laters,
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