I wrote today over at Mad Genius Club about how my writing this novel, alone, feels oddly like working without a net.
I know writing is generally considered a solitary occupation, but I think it is less so for most of us than we might at first admit. I know that by the time my fans see a book, dozens of other eyes have looked at it for various reasons. It's part of the way I know I'm delivering a good product, because I know I have beta readers and friends who I can trust to be honest with me. Which includes telling me if a story sucks. I need to know if it does, so I can fix it.
Going blithely to publication with everyone telling me something is great when it isnt'? Well, as I read more and more Indie, I see manuscripts I know that's what happened. The book sucks. But someone lied to the author, or the author was arrogant enough to never show it to anyone else before publishing it. It's hard to tell which. Traditional publishing suffers from the same thing, let me hasten to add. The diffference is that in trad -pubbed books, a whole team of people with no taste enabled the author's suckage. Like the story of the guy who got 300,000 pounds for his first book… which bombed.
Wouldn't it have been better for his long-term career to have started out with a book people enjoyed? This is why I rely on my beta readers, my First Reader, my friends who write, and even you, my blog readers. Thank you. When I put up snippets, some of you point out minor errors, true. But it's the big picture I'm worried about.
Is it a story?
Is it enjoyable?
That's all. It's fiction. I'm not trying to put across a message, I just want to tell a story and have some fun with it.