leaping into the shark tank

Today I had an attack of boldness and decided to submit a first chapter to a writing forum I belong to. (No, not that forum. Early drafts require gentle critique.) Confusingly, I have two contradictory feelings about this:

1. I am an unparalleled genius whose latest masterpiece will send readers into ecstasy.
2. I am a hack. Readers will laugh. Tomatoes may be thrown.

I suspect the truth, as always, will be somewhere in the middle.

meeting new beta readers

Stages of meeting new beta readers:

1. Elation! Somebody's read my first chapter and wants to read on! I am God!
2. Excitement! Thank you so much for volunteering. I want to build statues to your awesomeness.
3. Nervousness. You're such a nice person, I don't want to disappoint you. I'm worried the rest of my novel might not be any good.
4. Panic. Oh my God, I can't send you this piece of trash, do I have time to rewrite from scratch?
5. Resignation. I am a fraud. Everyone will find out: it is inevitable. The quicker I hit the send button, the quicker I can end my inevitable humiliation.
6. Attempt to drown self in alcohol and After Eights.

I think I need to reread what I told myself when I sent my beta draft to readers for the first time.

the infernal family: now terrorising beta readers

Today I finally finished a beta draft of THE INFERNAL FAMILY.

I’ve revised from start to finish. Axed storylines. Added characters. Rewritten huge sections from scratch. And when I read through a final time and found myself changing only the punctuation, I knew I was done.

I suffer from writers’ fear. I fear that my work isn’t good enough. I fear that if I think it’s good, I’ll be disappointed. I fear showing my work to people that I respect in case it causes them to realise I’m an idiot. But I’m learning to ignore those fears - and I hit that button and mailed out the beta version to the first of my wonderful beta readers, my amazing writer friend Amy. And I’m glad I did.

In the meantime, as always in the terrifying gap between submitting work and receiving feedback, I’m remembering my five commandments for scared writers:

1. Good enough is fine. Perfect is for later.
2. Everything can be fixed.
3. This is the millionth draft. There will be a millionth-and-one.
4. People still love me even if they don't love my work.
5. At least it's spelled correctly.

(Dear beta version of THE INFERNAL FAMILY,

Hi there. I’ve waited a long time to meet you.

I know you’re not perfect. There are things I wanted to do with you that I couldn’t pull off, and scenes that still clunk after a million revisions. But there are things about you I love - things that made you worth working on. And if I wait for you to be perfect, I’ll be waiting forever.

So I’m declaring you officially ... good enough.

Go play with your beta readers.

Love,
your writer)