The Vulnerability of Writing

There's a certain vulnerability that comes into writing, of releasing something from your head into the world for anyone to read. While I've never had children, for me it's the closest experience to having one: particularly when I give someone the manuscript to read for the first time.

I think of Stephen King who threw his first version of Carrie into the trash basket where his wife plucked it out and read it (not as easy to do now since many manuscripts never make it to paper form). His life might have been completely different had she not decided she wanted to read it even when he thought he was done with it.

My next book is due out in about a month (more to come on that soon) and when I handed off the first versions for several people to read I'll admit that I was nervous. I have learned that just because something works in my head doesn't mean it does on paper. I have several manuscripts I thought were better than they turned out to be. One someone read, the other one I saw it in the passage of time after I put it aside.

To hand over pages of works that I have written, a story, a book of hope, a memoir, is daunting. I feel as if I'm pacing my house until I find out if the person likes it or not. I don't expect someone to like it all, there always are changes, but my hope is that they like it enough that I can make the changes and move on with it. I need to know if it works or not because if it doesn't I need to fix it. 

Writing stories is what I do. Releasing them for everyone to read is also what I do. But in-between there are huge steps of letting go. I could easily keep them for myself but I want to share them with the world. And for me that means taking a deep breath and believing that's what I meant to do. And the more I do that, the better my writing is.