Stolen Moments

Just a quick post before I head to work tonight.

Had a flicker of insight about writing and sharing ideas with people. I know it's tempting. I know if writers are like me they want to share what they're working on because they are proud of their progress and their characters and their story and usually the end result is to have OTHERS read your stuff. But hold off if you can from giving people drafts of your work. Here are some reasons why:

1.) The Draft WILL Change- you wouldn't wear a half finished pair of pants to work, nor would you get into a half finished car. If you're still working on ideas, if you're still hammering out kinks and plugging up plot holes you wouldn't want to offer someone a half finished idea. First of all it can hurt how much they like the whole story because what they read now may not be how it ends up. Things may improve information excised or expanded and you can confuse your reader.

2.) You may scrap the idea altogether- if you're working on something and share it all around and then scrap it, it's not really a good look for you as a writer. You want to be taken seriously as a craftsman of the written word and not a wordflake (i.e. a person who starts writing projects and doesn't finish them). If you keep your work to yourself until it's more formed and finished then you'll already know the idea has promise and is truly a work in progress, not some scribbles that don't have the strength to make into a whole book.

3.) Idea thieves -someone with less scruples and more time to write could steal your idea. Protect your plots and your characters. They're your creative property so limiting the amount of eyes on your work is a good way to keep people from siphoning off your creative juices.

4.) The Reveal- you are a word magician. You want your work to be fresh, new and exciting to as many people as possible. Don't give away the secrets of you creative process by over exposing your work. Let it be a bit of a mystery.

There you have it, four good reasons why you shouldn't show off your novel! And now I'm off to work, and an overtime paycheck next week!

Toodle-loo!