Critiques

Yesterday I received an email from a friend.  I had posted 100 pages of my memior to several friends in an attempt to see if I was writing something of value or it was just self-serving schlock better saved for my kids to read when I am no longer here.

I had received one back from my friend Chassily Wakefield who pointed out my typos and grammatical errors.  She always likes what I write and other than my choppy first page she seems to like what I am doing.  An old friend from medical school said it brought back a lot of memories of our time together there.  She criticized my use of explatives but when I read some of it through they are appropriate.  I was very angry at those points in the story. 

Other people I sent it to have not responded.  I don't know if that is because they didn't like it, or they are just too busy in their lives to sit down and read anything.  I hope it is the latter.

But when I got Jen's note it gave me a warm feeling.  Jen is a graduate student in library science in Boston.  She reads a lot!  I value her opinion. This is what she said:

"I just had to let you know that I hadn't had a chance to start reading your manuscript, but then today at work, while waiting for a report to run, I thought it would be a good time to take a few minutes and read a few pages. Well, I got so pulled into it that I completely forgot that I was at work and before I knew it, I was on page 46! When I realized how long I'd spent not doing a single bit of work, I forced myself to close the document and refocus, but wow! I did spot some little things here and there - typos and such - that I'll make note of and send back to you, but I just had to let you know that overall, you've really got a gripping story here. I know you've mentioned bits and pieces of it to us before, but I just had no idea of the extent of what you went through. It makes me want to come give you a big hug (which I intend to do at LeakyCon!) and tell you how amazing you are and how proud I am to see where you are today and how far you've come from the incidents you're describing in this book. I cannot wait to finish reading it - I intend to use that as my motivation and bribery to myself to finish my school reading as quickly as possible so I can get back to it."

Thank you Jen for restoring my faith in this project.  I am going to work on that choppy first page and a query letter today and get it sent off.