Adventures in CPing

I’ll admit, I had wanted my other half to be the first person to critique this work.

I should also clarify that by saying that I wouldn’t normally recommend getting family or friends to read your stuff. Not unless you’re really confident they will be as objective as anyone realistically can be, and will actually provide helpful feedback. Any writers’ forum or quick google on the subject will bring up all sorts of horror stories about it going badly wrong. But, in our case, we’ve got form. As Literature and Law grads, we’ve proof read each other’s written work since University, and critiqued everything from structure to concept, and then some.

That said, a job combining brutally long hours and an extensive amount of paperwork means that the last thing A. wants to do in his spare time is read more words, along with facing the full force of my enthusiasm for historical costuming. (I know, right! Who doesn’t love a kirtle?)

So, for now, I’m working with another local writer, exchanging a couple of chapters every other week. And, yes, it’s scary handing over your baby on a judgment based on short acquaintance. With the exception of a brief meeting at a local writing group meetup, we were total strangers before we began. And, of course, that scariness is doubly so when nobody’s laid eyes on that particular piece apart from you. Well, except for that handful of pages a schoolteacher once read, way back when, for a creative writing assignment and looked at me like I’d grown a second head. But that’s another story. However, in having nowhere to hide, it’s actually a pretty good exercise in letting go.

A whole seven chapters are now out in the world, albeit in very circumscribed form. I can’t wait to add more.

In the meantime, A. has kindly informed me with his best lawyer’s grin that he thinks that there’ll be an evil priest involved, a mysterious mystery, and a mega-battle at some point. Admittedly he’s not completely wrong on all counts, but you’ll have to read the actual thing to find out.