Conficted: Someone's Reading My Novel

It's not much of a secret that I've actually written five novels before my current work in progress (WIP). And since my mother is so trustworthy and wanted to read two of my earlier novels, I let her. Apparently she really liked my first one because she printed the sequel so she could read it (with my permission of course).

But here's the thing, it's been three years since I wrote the novel she's currently reading. Yeah....

I know it isn't like its available to thousands of people but I have to admit I'm nervous. I've actually become more nervous and less open with my writing in the past year or so than I was before. I doubt it more than I ever did before.

What if she doesn't like it? She won't want to tell me. But I know she won't lie to me if I ask. My strategy? If she truly likes it, she'll seek me out and tell me herself. If she doesn't... then she probably won't say anything as long as I don't bring it up.

Back to the whole nervous and being less open part.... This whole being scared of letting people read what I write is actually impeding my mental search for a critique partner. I've been idly tossing names around every once and a while for the past few weeks. I don't want to send it to just anyone. But I want to make sure whoever I send it to will actually help me improve it.

I'm quite a ways off from this stage of the writing process; you know, since I haven't actually finished my contemporary. But the prospect of sending this novel off into someone else's hands is much scarier than it was with any of my other novels. This one is different. It's more personal to me somehow; I'm not all together certain why that is though. It's not like I've experienced anything I'm writing about.

But I believe in the story. When I sat down to write, I knew I didn't want to write another romantic contemporary where the guy swoops in and everything is all right. As some of my book blogging buddies have pointed out, just because you get the guy doesn't mean all of your problems are fixed. It just isn't realistic. And while I don't mind reading stories like that (I'm not all that picky), I didn't want to write one of those. I wanted to explore the character development. I wanted her to learn how overcome her problems. I didn't want the very sweet Adam to fix Daisy because that isn't how life generally works.

I believe in Daisy's story - more so than any other story I've written. This could be great. But letting someone read it is both scary and exciting all at the same time.

So hopefully my mother likes what she reads and hopefully I'll find a critique partner who'll be helpful and trustworthy. I can deal with criticism, I just need to know I trust them with something so dear to me.