by Annette Young
I always think that sending your writing out into the world for professional assessment is akin to sending your child out to school for the first time. You worry about that moment of arrival, whether the manuscript looks good and if the assessment will be kind and if your work will hold its own among all those other manuscripts.
Letting go of a manuscript after you have been toiling away on it for a long time is hard. You form an attachment to it, you want to protect it and you have to keep pandering to it. But at some point, you have to say that’s it. Package it up and send it out.
So, now that we’ve established the deep connection between the writer and any written material, think about your own feelings towards the novel or book that you may have been working on forever, what’s your instinct about sending it out? Is your manuscript ready? Do you feel ready? This is an emotional hurdle that you have to overcome if you really want to succeed in your writing goals. How will you know how good your writing is unless you take that leap of faith?
Fear of rejection is much stronger than actually being rejected. The reality is never pleasant but if you use it as a tool to get beyond it, you can achieve far more than you have ever imagined. Take it from me, sometimes that all-important first step turns into a huge leap and bound and you suddenly become more confident about your writing. It’s good to nurture, to care for and to put everything into your writing but at some point, you have to take a step back and view it dispassionately and then make the decision to let others read your work.
If you would like a professional opinion on your manuscript, take a look here.
