Not Alone

The best advice on writing I ever received was: Invent your confidence. When you're trying something new, insecurity and stage fright come with the territory. Many wonderful writers (and other artists) have been plagued by insecurity throughout their professional lives. How could it be otherwise? By its nature, art involves risk. It's not easy, but sometimes one has to invent one's confidence.

DIANE ACKERMAN

So I'm not alone in my insecurities. Glad to hear it.  It makes the feeling a bit easier to take and understand. But wow, what a roller coaster....

I've been getting feedback from friends who are reading S7. Definitely input to work with, and I'm grateful.  Two primary areas of concern have arisen.

One, some of the technical jargon. I originally began writing S7 with a very niche audience in mind - technical peeps, geeks, etc. Later I revised my goal and went back and 'simplified' a bit. Apparently not enough. So I'm going to revisit that effort once more.

Two, areas of verbosity where it dips too much into philosophy. This speaks to pace and progress, and I imagine some to respecting the reader's ability to draw their own conclusions and meaning. This requires simplification and reduction of the text, so that is my other effort at this point.

The other feedback is strongly favorable of the readability, the overall pace, and the story line itself. One reader, whose genre preference is most directly aligned with S7, is really liking it and that feedback is especially encouraging. Another whose genre preference is not aligned said despite the fact, he found himself drawn into the story. This bodes well, I believe. Time and exposure will tell.

So I'm closing in on what I believe are the final revisions of this, my first completed novel. I'm partly nervous, partly excited. It's been said that writing is hell, and it's not just the writing process that's tough!