Someone reads your work. Someone you know well. Or not.
You wait for a reaction. You wait with carefully composed expression that (you think) will not reveal the anticipatory wreck you really are inside. You try not to let the reader know how desperate and needy you are for an answer. Sometimes you wait for a very, very long time. Sometimes you wait forever.
That a person has asked to read your work is not a request, it is a bond sacred and serious (in your head, at least). You have allowed someone to hold your precious newborn; you trust that he/she will not be so cavalier as to drop it on its head, or abandon it in the slush pile of personal indifference.
Good luck with that.
No reaction is a terrible reaction. It is a golem handcuffed to your hopes. It is a thing made of polite demur…or indifference—and either is poison.
In the hierarchy of faint praise, silence is worst. Interesting is not much better. Fine and nice are enough to send a dedicated writer into trembling fits. Not my thing is cause to search out a bottle marked with skull and crossbones.
Like…now we’re getting closer. Love and adore are squirmy-gratifying. Worship the syntax you walk on…is psychic food. And my absolute favorite (this one real and as recent as yesterday, thank you, Glorious): !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Each word of praise lasts in the heart for a precise nanosecond before the eternal perfection-Jones kicks in and the elusive quest for craft takes over again. And that’s exactly as it should be.
The act of writing is an unending effort to surpass our own expectations. It is the tail we chase but never catch, the emotional hamster wheel that never stops turning. If we must teach ourselves to live on the spare food of faint praise, so be it. Pining for affirmation—but being acutely uncomfortable with it when it comes—is part of the wonder of what we do.
Now, what was that you were saying? It sounded nice….
Sky Diaries 
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March 6, 2013 at 7:38 am
writerdood
I feed my readers scenes as I revise. We started with the entire book and went through that, but since engaging in serious revision, it’s become more of a re-write than an edit. (And I’ve been at it for over a year now). Fortunately, my primary reader is also a creative writing instructor. She’s been a tremendous help identifying places where readers would be confused – stuff that I cannot see as I’m simply too close to the story. My plot line is convoluted, so it’s a big help.
You’re right about no reaction being the worst. Feedback is more than a desire, it’s a necessity. Sometimes I get irritated when the feedback is negative, but I hold to a policy of waiting a day before responding to it. Feedback is too valuable to risk loosing it, even if it’s negative. It’s important to listen to it and take it to heart. Most of the time, I make the suggested changes. It goes back and forth.
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March 6, 2013 at 7:56 am
mywithershins
You are so right! It’s hard not to hear (or read) those complimentary words we crave when someone reads our work. We hold our breath, hoping that their praise will make the journey worth the price of solitary confinement. When their words are less than kind or only mediocre appraisals of a piece we have slaved over for months (or years!) we feel as though a dagger has been thrust into the centre of our being, our life’s blood dripping to the floor. May you receive only the highest praise, or at the very least, kind criticism that will help you achieve the perfect story! 🙂
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March 6, 2013 at 8:17 am
Beth Anne Reed
I still have the text from my sister, ‘more story, please’ from several years ago… She lost interest and never finished it though. (I’m still working on the 3rd draft)
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March 6, 2013 at 8:32 am
Dave Higgins
No response, or a polite response, is always irritating as it feels – however intended – as a dismissal of the agonies invested in birthing the work. This is why I actually prefer a statement of imperfection to praise: no-one ever said a character lacked clear motivation just to be polite.
Criticism also sets to rest my feelings of imperfection for the rest of the work; if they do not mention it then it was not as flawed as my inner critic suggests.
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March 6, 2013 at 10:39 am
Alexander M Zoltai
Love the way you create a graded series of responses 🙂
I hope you do a post about receiving confirmation from the Reader-Inside-The-Writer—sure the Writer is always looking to improve but doesn’t the Reader-Within-The-Writer sometimes say, “Hey, calm down, that’s pretty damn good!”?
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March 6, 2013 at 7:15 pm
lynnbiederstadt
AZ, You always have a way of focusing me…what a great idea for a post…
-lb
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March 7, 2013 at 2:57 am
Jo Bryant
I am sorry to say Lynn that I was unable to read your book because it was on a laptop that died…luckily a couple of weeks ago a friend repaired the faulty part for me and i was able to get in to it again. I will read it as soon as I can. Life has been,,,well life really, lately for me and I am behind on a few things.
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March 7, 2013 at 7:55 am
lynnbiederstadt
Jo, You have been a great reader and a good, supportive friend. Please, no reasons required from you, just gratitude from this open-nerve-ending of a writer! -Lynn
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