Phase Three of my Novel Writing

Today has been a very good day for my ego. It doesn't always need help, but I think I needed an extra bit of encouragement today.

First, I will explain the title. I just started the phase thing, so I guess I'll explain it. It might be pretty obvious. Phase One was writing and creating my novel. Phase one, is done.

Phase Two was reading it out loud to Clint and editing as I read. Phase Two is done.

Phase Three has been to share my writing with three or four people. I emailed it to my mom, and two of my best friends: Karen and Denise. Now - I know that sharing a book with people who love you anyway is not really a proper 'feedback' technique, but these three are honest. I think they'd tell me if they didn't love it. They would tell me NICELY, but they would let me know it needs a lot of work. I'm not saying, of course, that it doesn't still need work, but the feedback I'm getting is making me pretty happy, grateful and excited for the next phases (although I'm only figuring them out one phase at a time, so I'm not sure when or what the next one will be). Either way, I know with the feed back and a bit of grammar checking, I'll be including the next group of changes in phase three of getting published. My friend, Ashleigh, is also reading it for me.

I'm looking forward to the negative feedback as well as the good stuff. Although, I do like the good comments the most. It's all helping me, make my novel the best I can.

Of course, at some point, I will have to decide on the title. That's pretty important, and right now, I have no idea what it'll be.

So, now I will share some of the feedback because it made me feel really happy with myself, and one step to more confident that maybe this will get published some day. Keep in mind, that these are comments from my mom, and two close friends -so they're good.

The comment below is not really a spoiler even though it looks like.

I'm not sure where Denise is at reading it, so I'll save her final comments for later. I do know she will be printing it out and getting a pen to mark up anything she isn't sure about or bad grammar. (Hopefully a red pen).

My mom plans to do the same, but she did read it all first before starting. She called me today at work to tell me she had finished reading it. I can't quote her exactly because it was a phone call, and I was just excited that she read it. (In a day and a bit... it's a quick read for anybody who is interested in quick reads -ONCE IT'S PUBLISHED). She told me she enjoyed reading it, enjoyed the dialogue and she thought it was very good. She may have said she was proud of me. I may have teared up.

Karen texted me yesterday before she was finished with this comment, "Erin, if your book had pages it would be a page turner! Seriously, it's really good! I haven't put it down since we got home from hockey at 4:30! I'm not just saying this because you're my best friend, I really love it and I'm so proud of you." Again -I teared up. And also, she read it on her phone, which was probably a bit annoying and is why it had no pages.

Then this afternoon she texted me with, "I'm done! You are an amazing author! I'm so proud of you."

So, like I said, it's been a really good day for my ego. It's been full of happy sighs, and smiles, and relief. To be honest, it's given me a moment where I really thought, 'This might actually happen'. Because like I said, writing it was a great accomplishment, but a kind of wondered if maybe that would be it.

So, this blog entry was all about showing off. Sorry. Not that sorry though. I wrote a book! And people like it! (Three people for sure.)

That's it.

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