The Terror of Room B!
Okay, this isn't really a horror entry. This is an entry about having gone to a critique setting put on by a local writers group! Last night was my first. I had visions of 2 people sitting in a room staring at each other through bottle-end glasses and licking their chapped lips. Perhaps even taking sips out of half-empty plastic soda bottles. However, I was pleasantly surprised. There were twelve of us in a very roomy meeting room in the local public library. Very comfortable, actually, and everyone was friendly.
Having been new, everyone took turns introducing themselves and what they wrote. The subject matter ranged from victorian era fiction, urban fantasy, mid-grade fiction (whatever that is but it sounded like contemporary fiction for perhaps a younger audience. I honestly was not brave enough to ask), and amusing fantasy. All of the entries were required to be G rated due to being in close proximity to the library proper. The format itself was simple. Put your name down on a pad of paper and next to it indicate if you would be reading for the group.
I, of course, put no next to my name. I was on a fact finding mission to determine what the group was about and how they operated. Each person had about fifteen to twenty minutes total. They could choose to use ten or fifteen of those minutes to read, but were limited by whatever time was left for the group to critique.
I found the reading to be interesting and engaging. Most of those that had written something were dedicated, and you could clearly hear their voice in their work. The variety was excellent as well from the clearly experienced to those that were learning. That was the first terror. Imagining how my work would stack up to theirs. Would it come across as dry and morose? Interesting? Boring? or the worst of the lot, amateurish? Ugh. Terrible. I could clearly see in my minds eye everyone's face wrinkling up in strained patience or masks of politeness as I read off my work.
All self inflicted fantasy.
For the most part, everyone was polite. They gave effort to giving feedback that would help the authors that read instead of dismissing them. I find that online, authors tend to practice the latter a bit too often. I've been the victem of authors that have simply said "Looks amateurish to me. You can get cheap covers for $40 bucks online!" Its like watching a slow dagger to the heart reading that kind of feedback because its not sincere but overly dismissive. No one in last nights face-to-face group did that and I was pleased.
So now I have next Tuesday to look forward to. I will take the first chapter in my current WIP there with me, and read it (after actually editing it, which I don't do until the end of my writing). I think I'm brave enough to do that, but that is the second Terror that I will have to face in Room B. Maybe I should tape my eyes shut while I read so I don't see the grimaces and eye rolls? I am being hard on myself, but ultimately that is what the true terror is. The same one that keeps authors from publishing, or sharing their work in progress and that is all from within themselves.
If you don't publish or even try, how do you ever expect to find out if you are good enough to buy.
