Hey WriteByNighters,
That question comes from our pal E., who asks if it's best to keep a work-in-progress to oneself or share it with "trusted parties."
On the one hand, E. writes,
"If you describe it aloud, you tell the story and have less of a psychological need to write it."
(I've done that! It's awful.)
But if you do share your ideas and/or work, E. continues, "You can get feedback, encouragement, and be held accountable to finish."
This is an important question, because so often our WIPs are fragile things, and it can take only one small misstep to blow us off course.
Last weekend I had a workshop with my writing group in which we discussed the new intro to my book. I got exactly what E. describes above: feedback and encouragement. Two of my readers even spotted a flaw that I never would've found on my own.
Helpful, right? But this WIP is so important to me that if their feedback had been negative, there's a good chance I would've stayed in bed all week and then never picked up a pen again.
So what do you all think: Keep your ideas and your work to yourself until you write "The End," or open yourself to feedback while it's still a WIP?
Or, in the more colorful words of E., "Keep your mouth shut and surprise the world, or it takes a village to raise a book?"
