Scared

Back in November I wrote a novel. The even is called NaNoWriMo or National Novel Writing Month where participants compete against themselves and the clock to write a 50,000 word novel. I finished my 50,000 words with a day to spare, and the ending to still be finalized. I have been doing NaNoWriMo for the last three years. I started because my sister heard about it from some friend and I thought, '50,000 words, that's nothing!' Well that year I managed to finish it with literally moments to spare. In the twenty-third hour of the night, I had finished and was so excited. That novel though was a piece of crap. I wasn't prepared. I had a story inside of my head but misjudged the length with the original story. The original part was a mere 10,000 words. I had to think quick as the second hand changed minutes and hours soon went by. I ended up doing an epilogue to that story to fill up the remaining 40,000 words where my characters jumped 10 years into the future. Once that last word was typed, the words entered onto the official website which counts the words, I never looked back at it. 
The next novel I wrote I was better prepared. I had more ideas flowing in my head. I described my characters better and made them have their own flaws. I made them human. Thing was, it was still crap. I didn't know what I was talking about. I related on others to help me too often. It is a fine thing to have others help you, don't get me wrong, but there's something different about hearing about the experience or event verses actually going through it. When you actually experience the event, you remember certain things. The way the light was shinning. The smells. The background noises. How you felt. Why you felt that way. These things are typically lost in day to day communication where the go to response is always 'I guess you had to be there.' With writing, if you write well, you should never have to say that. The words on the page should draw such an emotional response that it is like you were actually there. The characters and readers should see how the light shines. Taste the smells. Hear the background noises. Feel like they are currently experience it. Understand why they feel the emotions that they do. As my characters lacked most of these things, it was still a piece of crap and once again, I have never looked back at a single word I wrote, yet still remember the basic plot.
The third novel I wrote was different. I dove right in. I started with action. I describe somethings with such great detail that the picture in my head was exactly like the one drawn with words. My characters have feelings. They cried. They laughed. They loved. My characters have jobs. They stress about certain things and they each have their own quirk that makes them who they are. Several of my characters died. Some as heroes. Some by accident. They experience things that they never tried before. They helped others with their problems while setting their problems on the back burner. They traveled. They weren't always happy but they lived, they really lived. Because I liked the way I was writing this novel so much while writing (not wanting to stop just because I was on such a roll) I decided to edit it. After the first two chapters of editing, I decided to let me sister read it and edit for grammar mistakes as I was sure I missed my fair share. This was the part I was scared of. I was finally letting someone else into my brain. Into how I think. If you have ever written three books, the first two being complete duds and a waste of time and finally feeling so passionate about the third that you are actually proud of it (wanting to hang it up on the fridge with a gold star) then you understand what I was going through. If not, let me explain. This was the moment when I would find out if someone else liked my work. Liked my work so much that they could not put it down. This was also the moment when I would find out if I should stick to my day job and not write another novel again. I was terrified of this moment. This moment would defy me for the rest of my living days. I clicked the send button on my email and she received it seconds later. It was there. In her hands now to judge. To judge my work. To judge my mind. To ultimately judge me.
At the end of each chapter, she said she was caught. She wanted to find out what would happen next. Why the characters were the way they were. She was reading the fourth chapter (of eight total) yesterday and tweeted a great complement. She said "Man, my sister's writing is so good that one part made the Life and Death theme from LOST play in my head while reading." As we were both LOST lovers when it was on, it was one of the nicest things she has ever said. 
I am still scared to let others read my work as I know that every book isn't for everybody and that I certainly have a fair share of books that I tried reading which brought me to not look at it again. I am proud of myself. Not for writing my third novel and actually liking it myself, but for growing and letting another person read what I imagined and go on the same dream that I had. Hopefully this next November my novel will be one that I love just as much as this one. Hopefully I will not be scared to show it to others. Only time will tell.