Wednesday Writing Update

If you're wondering where I've been all week, I'll tell you. I finally buckled down and finished the draft of "Sneakatara Boatman and the Priest of Loki".  I'm happy to have the draft done but feeling rather more neurotic than usual about whether or not it works.

I always feel like endings are tricky.  By the time I get to the end of a story, it's usually been bouncing around in my head for so long that I can't see the way all the pieces link together anymore, and I've long since lost any objectivity.  On top of that, writing is like vomiting your soul onto a printed page.  You want to believe it works, but at the same time, you have to give vent to all of your insecurities, or the characters don't struggle enough.  That's what it's like for me, anyway.  And you want it to work, want people's approval, but acquaintances can be a tricky audience. Getting the truth our of them isn't easy.  Hell, just getting your friends to actually read your work and comment on it is practically the hardest part of writing in general.  Nothing makes people lose interest faster than the words, "Would you read my unpublished manuscript?"  

And then you want comments?  Forget about it!

*sigh*

This is why I like writing for my kids. They are an appreciative, unfiltered audience. They like that I write for them, can't wait to read whatever I give them, and lack the social grace to lie about how much they enjoyed it.  Plus, they have an opinion about everything. 

You wonder why there's so much YA fiction out there?  As a writer, I wonder how there's not even more of it.  I can't want to give this new story to my girls, even though I know that it needs a re-write first.