Anxiety

Now for high anxiety! Yesterday, I finished editing my novel.  And when I say finished I really mean that I inserted written corrections into the computer, hoping that I caught every mistake, but most likely missing a few.  So, I have sent my manuscript to four different friends/colleagues, three of which are fellow English Majors, another a grammar guru, one a doctor, and the last, a fellow novelist gone to the dark side of video game lust.  We are all praying to he makes a quick recovery. 

I fret over their handling of my work.  Not that they will bash it and say it is no good.  No, my self esteem has grown too strong to let that bother me.  It’s the time.  Will they spend a week, two weeks, a month, six months reading it?  When I call will they give stock responses such as, “Oh, I’m real busy right now but I cannot wait to read it.” All the while they are sitting on their couch, watching the latest episode of “True Blood” or “Family Guy” or deeply enthralled with a quest on Warcraft.  Let’s hope not.  A handful of seventh and eighth graders, a portion of my intended audience, read the four hundred pages in a week or less.  Let’s hope, for my sanity, that my peers can pull off a similar feet.  I would really appreciate that.  Seeing that I am waiting on their response, their insightful critiques, their editing eye before I proceed to self publish.  If not, then maybe I will beg my wife to let my shell out five hundred bucks for an editor.  That, or I will scour the universities in the area and entice a grad student to take my novel on as an editing project, all for the low low price of zero dollars.  Zero is better than five hundred.  So, until then, I bid my silent listeners farewell.