It was easy to hand over my finished novel to my mother and let her read it. I knew if she hated it that she would let me down easy and use positivity to lead me in another direction. I had no nervous knot in my stomach as I handed over the manuscript I had spent hours, days, and months typing away, retyping, editing, rethinking, editing some more…etc etc etc when she took my novel and sat down to read.
Sending it out to publishers, and agents wasn’t even difficult for me. I knew I would get rejections its part of the business. I was prepared and ready. Yet, now that I face having to hand my novel over to friends and fellow writers to read and critique I am scared silly! I don’t want to know what they think! What if they hate it!?
Right now, I am having it printed out to send to people who’s opinion I value. People I know will tell me their honest opinion. They are not editors or even in the publishing business. They are just readers and a few writers. So, I throw my hands up their playing my song….no wait..that’s Miley not me…I take a deep breathe and put my big girl panties on and deal with it 🙂