I journeyed to the Mountain Top and to the Depths of the Valley...

…metaphorically speaking. Two weeks ago, I wrote the best chapter I’ve ever written. It was the first chapter of my new book. I loved it, and felt that if you read this chapter, you’d say, “Wow, M.B., you’ve really grown as an author.”

I was on top of my mountain confidence-wise. I also wrote my last blog post about critique groups and gave some advice on handling yourself as a critic and an author. Those worlds all came crashing together, knocking me off my mountain. I stand before you, humbled and stronger for it.

I’m not going to go into what happened. I’m not going to put up a defense. I won’t get into any of the after-event ‘ballet of emails’ that ensued. I will talk in generalities and get into my head a bit about how I dealt with it and what is next. How I am going to climb to the top of that next, taller mountain.

A few weeks ago, I decided that the book I had been working off-and-on for the better part of two years was going into the author’s trunk. It was a hard decision. I would then shift my focus to the second book in the series. There were multiple good reasons for doing this, and if you want to read about them, go back a couple of blog posts. I dusted off my already drafted second book. This was drafted by “baby-author” M.B. I know I’ve grown in the craft a lot since it was drafted. I remember somebody saying once, many times, “pantsters” draft a book that becomes their outline, and they re-write the second draft. So, that is what I tried. I wrote a paragraph outline of the things I wanted to happen in the chapter. I deleted the original paragraph and rewrote it.

One of the things I struggle with as an author is “style.” I don’t mean I wear last year’s colors or my suits were cut in 2005. Style is what we authors technically refer to as grammar. Where, oh, where does that comma go? To use an adverb or not to use an adverb. Should I use past tense or past perfect? Remember that stuff from fourth and fifth grade when you were doodling army men wars on the page because it was boring? Yeah, that stuff. To help with that, I downloaded Grammarly. Much of my submissions were confusing my critiquers with this type of stuff. So, to help them, well, me too, I paid for the annual subscription. A small side trail, but It was totally worth it.

I polished this chapter and gave it to my adult kids who read the genre. They loved it. I gave it to my wife, who isn’t a fan of the genre, and she liked it. It was ready. I submitted it to my critique group.

CRASH. Early in my submission, my main character did, or rather didn’t do, something that two of the members of the group thought he should. It was a legitimate thing to point out. Instead of focusing on my chapter, it distracted their critique on that. Much of the feedback centered around that. And I fell off the mountain. Again, some ensuing emails don’t need to be dragged out, and I was mostly in the wrong. Here I was, fresh from a “how to react in a critique group” blog post, not reacting like I said.

I was at the lowest point in my young author career. I thought I had done a great thing, but I missed a major thing that upset people I cared about. This drove me away from my M. B. Everett persona and forced me to consider whether I still wanted to do this.

I shared the chapter with another ‘bookish’ friend. I forgot that I had, and after all the above happened, she picked me up. She told me that it was amazing how much better this was than my already pretty good short story, how I did a great job with the description, and how she really liked the main character. I was already coming out of the valley when she and I talked, but this put a bounce in my step. She encouraged me more than she probably realizes, and I’ll be forever grateful for that.

The aftermath of this experience. First, I have a much stronger, better chapter than I had thought was good. Also, I think the story will be strengthened, and the characters will become more believable based on the feedback. I realize that I have blind spots, and I need peers to point them out. And finally, not everyone is going to like what I do. I need to accept that as their right. But, there will also be people who do like it. Cherish the latter, and don’t judge the former.