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Another Secret Project Update

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via Pinterest
An adorable picture that has nothing to do with my post.
     It is quite possible that you will hear a lot about my secret project.  I have already exhausted my mother's ever-patient ears.  But it has me in various stages of excitement and despair.  The logical part of me lectures, as Marilla did, that I would be better off if I avoided the roller coaster of emotions.  Write the story, edit it, submit it -- none of this jittery stuff need be involved.  But the Anne side of me refuses to do this.  After all, half of the excitement of a Christmas is the anticipation!  Is a story submission any less?
     
     Editing has begun.  Oddly enough, it isn't as hard as I anticipated.  I can't help but wonder if somebody out there is praying for me because, seriously, this was not my forte last time I checked.  There were a few scenes that I knew were horrible, but they smoothed out very easily under my fingers.  Once I finish going through it (about 5 times), my friend is going to beta-read for me.

      It took me until today to get the courage to ask my friend to beta-read for me.  You see, he beta-read for me before...so I knew what I was getting into.  Last time he read one of my stories, he (figuratively) ripped it to shreds and demanded I put it back together right.  I deeply respect his opinion, and he can be quite blunt.  Hence, the reason why it took me a few days to get my nerve up.
     Why do I still go to him?  Because he is right.  Because every time he shreds my work, I come out of it a better writer.  And that's what I want.
     But I am still, as a friend of mine likes to say, taking deep breaths.

     All of this will be worth it if I become a better writer as a result -- and I usually do.  Each time I finish a project, whether or not it makes it to fame, I can see how much I have improved.  And that makes the effort worth it.  If it goes on beyond that to be published, then so much the better.

    In fact, I would be positively ecstatic to be published. J
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