Trust, Sabotage, Addiction -- Good Clean Fun!

Remember I said I was learning to tolerate people reading my work? I think 'tolerate' is the right word. It's still extremely uncomfortable and it still throws me off beam for hours after I get comments. I have a tendency not only to read a person's words, but also to gauge their tone from their sentence structure and choice of words and punctuation, rather like I might a person's body language more clearly than their words. I have no idea if this is appropriate, or even healthy, but it certainly does allow me to self-sabotage at an alarming rate.

In other words, those who aren't raving I automatically assume actually hate it.

Now, unless someone comes out and says they hate the piece, they probably don't hate it. One has to take the time to open a window and compose a comment, so one has to be invested enough to bother, and I think it's safe to assume that this level of investment comes along only if one is in fact enjoying the story. Either that, or they would tell me flat-out when they hate it -- not that I'm asking people to do that! But you get my point, that it's just self-sabotage for me to sit and analyze a commenter's word choice and punctuation. Chances are they didn't, and are just relaying their thoughts as they have them, same as I would do.

So why the over-analysis?

Serializing a story is hard, because it allows the reader into the development of the story rather than just presenting it as a done deal and walking away. It's like being stuck in the same room listening to them as they read the entire book out loud and talk about it to their friends. There is something about this process that is fairly excruciating, and yet at the same time addictive. Because when I get something right in a reader's eyes, there is no feeling like it. It is addictive. I don't know how I will do without it.

But when they simply think out loud, with no conclusion or with a word or two I might consider disapproving, I don't know how I will continue to live with it.

I need to finish this story, get the thing to the climax of it and get it over with. And I am thinking this morning that I need to do this in isolation so I get it right. I need to withstand and brace myself against my addiction to comments and just write the whole rest of the story before I share any more of it. I can feel myself being tempted to design the story to what I am guessing the readers want, even while I do understand that's not why they are there. Of course they have opinions. But this is my story, not theirs, and I need to go away from them for long enough to get it told the way it needs to be -- not the way I am guessing they maybe want it to be when they don't know the characters like I do. Trust myself, and trust that my characters will live their lives the way they need to, even if I don't agree and the readers don't agree.