Fadedwords

I mentioned a couple posts back that I had sent my novel to my mentor, Susan, to get her feedback and editing expertise.  I’ve written of Susan several times here; she was the all-important teacher in my life that encouraged me to write.  She has always been someone I could trust with my words.  Her critiques are always honest but not painful, and so I knew sending it off to her would be a safe way to get another person’s eyes on the novel for editing purposes. 

I got an email from her this morning that said that she had attached the novel.  It also said:

“I made a few editorial suggestions for the prologue, and the rest read like ice-cream; really well done, you’re a master story-weaver, and I can see your growth as a writer.”

I was moved by those words.  I opened up the file and quickly saved it to my external hard drive so I could take some time this weekend and look it over.  After exactly 2.2 seconds I gave up waiting, because I really wanted to see what she’d said. 

“What an intriguing prologue- I love it, and want to read more!  My comments in this section are just little areas that I thought, from an editorial perspective, could be tweaked as you work this out.  I really like the theme, and I think many women of all ages will appreciate it.  Men will be completely intrigued by it!

As I read on, it became more intriguing to read and you do a nice job of weaving ni dialogue, action, and plot- really crafted, and very  human.  Are you submitting this for publication?  You really should, but if you do it seems that tragedy and drama sells!  Good luck with this.

I know it sounds silly, but I was completely floored by her feedback.  There were other notes in several places, particularly the prologue, that were really helpful.  She made a few comments about how well I’d ended a paragraph, or how well I’d described something.  I was most shocked that there wasn’t a lot of “change this, fix that, maybe take this out,” kind of notes.  I was expecting that.  I was not expecting such a bunch of nice feedback.

I don’t know why that is.  Everyone who has read it thus far has really seemed to enjoy it… even friends at school who were a little put off at first by what seemed to be a very risque novel.  Once they got past the first little bit they realized that it wasn’t what they’d thought at all, and have told me I did a really nice job.  Somehow I’m always feeling like people say nice things because they feel obligated or that they don’t want to hurt my feelings.  I know Susan well enough that I know she would not just placate me to help me feel good.  She would certainly not suggest sending it in to try and publish it if she didn’t really believe that it was well-written and something I should be proud of.

So thanks Susan for your kind words and for helping me believe in myself.  There aren’t too many people I trust with my writing in this capacity, and as always you gave me feedback that truly helped.  I really needed that feedback today; with everything else that’s going on I needed something to make me smile.  I wasn’t expecting the notes in an edit of my novel would do that, but I’ll take it.