Sigh of relief
June was a quiet writing month, as evidenced by my sheer lack of posting. I took my vacation (very lovely, thank you), watched my beloved Penguins win the Stanley Cup, and worked outside in the yard.
I also gave le livre to three people to read. When I handed it over to the first person, I felt really terrified for half a second, like, “No! My baby! Don’t take her away from me!” But then I got over it, and handed it over, and thought, “Well, that’s that. No more control.” And isn’t that the point of writing, anyway? To share it with the world, not hide it away in some desk drawer or, in this century, in some folder on a desktop?
I’ve gotten good preliminary feedback from them, and will be discussing it in more depth with them soon. But can I say that I breathed a huge sigh of relief that none of them – and all of them are smart, opinionated people – think that there are major problems with it? I know I still have work to do on it, and what they think will probably be different from what a prospective agent or editor thinks, but still. I’m feeling pretty good.
So good, in fact, that I have started inking out a few more ideas I’ve had for projects after this one. One of them is a story I originally started writing before le livre, then got so interested in one of the characters that I ended up switching and writing a whole book about her (the main character in le livre). The other one came to me a few months ago, and while I really like the story, I’m not sure about it. It centers around a female high school athlete, and I’m not sure if that’s marketable. I know you should write what you love and not worry about the market or popularity, but I have a couple ideas bouncing around in my head right now. If one is going to be less marketable, maybe it makes sense to focus on the other one?
Whatever feels right, I suppose. We’ll see where things lead.
