Indeed, I’ve done a lot toward getting my writing out into the open in the last few months. Back in February I printed out several chapters of my novel and did an informal writing swap / critique with several friends of mine. We sat at a coffee shop and read each other’s writing and then discussed each piece. I asked specific questions about each of the characters—“What do you think is going to happen to X?” “What’s your impression of the relationship between X and Y?”

About a month ago I went to the spring conference of my local SCBWI chapter (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators). I missed the deadline for the professional critique session with one of the visiting editors, but I did take part in an informal critique session with several other women who were writing YA novels. I was the youngest one in the group by far. I was also the only one who was writing contemporary YA (versus historical or fantasy literature). Reading my piece out loud to the other authors had me internally shuddering at how bloody WORDY it was. A good revelation to have; I’ve done a lot of pruning to those chapters since then. The feedback I received from those writers was quite valuable.

After that, I did some polishing on chapter two of the novel and read it out loud to Adam. Less hiding, more feedback! And last night I was complaining to him that I hadn’t made much progress on the novel all week, so he challenged me to have the prologue and the first four chapters finished and ready to read to him by next Monday, April 9. If I’m happy with them at that point, I’ll probably share them with a few other people—a couple friends, maybe my sister, maybe even the “Share Your Work” forum on the message boards on AbsoluteWrite.com.

It feels like it’s been a long time since my last burst of fear about sharing my writing with others. Phew. This phase of my writing life is most welcome.