One friend, one I was most anxious to share my accomplishment with, never read the book. Each time we talked, I held my breath…would she like it? Was she not bringing it up because she hated it? Did she think it was too stupid to comment on? After several weeks of not hearing a word from her about it, I finally lost all composure and blew up. Why hadn’t she read it? Didn’t she understand how important it was to me? She gave me several excuses…that she had been too busy, that she had started it but hadn’t had time to read it. I wonder now if she had been worried about having to be honest with me about it. What if she HAD read it and didn’t like it? What kind of position would she have been in then? How would she tell me?
Now the book has become a sensitive topic for both of us. I still don’t know if she’s read it. Now that I have an agent, and now that it seems the book could actually be published, we can’t seem to talk about it.
I never should have asked her to read it. I should have relied on my writing group, the trusted few whose work I admired, the ones who I could count on to comment and suggest in a way that didn’t make it a personal issue.
I know now who to ask to read. My sister, my writing group, my agent and that’s it.
Everyone else can wait.
M. L. Doyle has served in the U.S. Army at home and abroad for more than two decades as both a soldier and civilian. Mary is the author of The Desert Goddess series, an urban fantasy romp consisting of The Bonding Spell and The Bonding Blade. She has also penned The Master Sergeant Harper mystery series which has earned numerous awards including an IPPY, a Lyra Award and the Carrie McCray Literary Award. Mary is the co-author of two memoirs; A Promise Fulfilled; the story of a Wife and Mother, Soldier and General Officer (Jan. 201) and the memoir, I’m Still Standing: From Captive U.S. Soldier to Free Citizen—My Journey Home (Touchstone, 2010), which was nominated for an NAACP Image award. Mary's work has been published by The Goodman Project, The War Horse, The WWrite Blog and The Wrath-Bearing Tree, an online magazine for which she serves as a fiction editor. A Minneapolis, Minnesota native, Mary current lives in Baltimore. You can reach her at her website at mldoyleauthor.com.
One comment on “My road to getting published – Should Friends and Family Read Your Writing? Part II”
We WANT UPDATES!!! 🙂