Dear readers and writers,
I've just sent off my novel, The Bad Project, for a cover-to-cover review, and I'm feeling tumultuous again. This is the third time I've sent the text of one of my books to someone this way. I can't call what I feel anticipation or fear, it's a mixture of both.
It's the shoulder daemon, you see. When he's in his editor phase, he tells me so clearly that I cannot write beautiful prose, that it's full of errors, that it stumbles when it should fly. But when he is in his writer phase, he can't wait to see what the characters can do any more than I can, and he tells me how fascinating they are, and how well the things they do reveal their deeper selves. And even how well I've written about them at times. There's no way I can tell which phase has the upper hand on the truth. But an outsider, a knowledgeable reader, my reviewer'll know for sure.
So, I throw salt over my shoulder, cross my eyes at the evening star, cross my fingers, eschew my husband's lucky number (13), etc and feel on edge. It's not reasonable that the ms has even arrived and I'm already nervous. No one can read it as fast as I'd like this to be over. I tell myself to calm down, breathe deeply. I rub my feet with hand cream. I stretch. I answer old emails that I've almost forgotten about. Is it still the same day? Egads.
cheers,
Laura
Image: Comedy and Tragedy masks from mosaic at Hadrian's Villa, Creative Commons with thanks.
