After I write this I'll be sending Innocence and Silence to my first reader.
It's an emotional time. I'm excited to hear about what she'll think, and I can't wait until she reads my favorite parts. I hope that she calls me when I really zing her on the page, and I get that sinking feeling that she'll call me late one night and tell me no no no, this isn't working and I'm totally lost ….
A lot of people write just for themselves, or keep their writing circulating within a close circle of friends. A writer friend of mine had issues with that. He called writing for yourself masturbation in the dark, and said that if a person doesn't publish, they're not a real writer. (I guess writing for a closed circle would be considered mutual masturbation. He meant it as an insult, but this is what I took away from his comment and I have to say that it doesn't sound particularly terrible to me.)
BTW, I was very grown up and didn't tease him. You should all be very proud of me, because I was tempted to go after him with this line of reasoning. First of all, what's wrong with masturbating in the dark? It's private and personal (usually.) That's different than bad. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure he meant it in the same way people sometimes use gay to mean stupid, but that's not exactly the sort of language use I'd expect out of him. Although it can be in-your-face and expression, mostly it's juvenile and mean. He's the sort of person who might use the word purile rather than juvenile, which makes it especially funny that he'd say something like this about a person he doesn't know very well.
Anyway, just like there's nothing wrong with masturbation in the dark, there's nothing wrong with writing just for your own pleasure. Seriously. The actual retort I made to him (in a nice tone of voice) went like this: I garden. Just because I don't open my garden to the public, that doesn't mean I'm not a gardener, right?
But I don't write just for myself. Hence he holds me in somewhat more respect than he does the person whom we were discussing. (She hasn't published, but she writes beautifully. I love visiting her seldom-posted-on private blog and I'm very happy she allows me to read it from time to time. I contend that she's a full-blooded, awesome and wonderful writer. And I'm sure she masturbates in the dark with equal talent.)
Since I don't write just for myself, that means that at some point I have to release the book, first to a first reader, and then to the public at large. It's fun, but it also forces me to let go. Jay Lake says that once a book is published, it's no longer yours. Legally that's not true unless you're doing work for hire, but in an emotional and social sense, he's right. The book belongs to the reader. In a sad, scary way it can be a little like having a child and adopting it out to the readers who might love it the same, or more than you, or not at all. The books I write are part of my soul. I gift them to the world, knowing they'll never really be mine again, knowing that there is no guarantee that they will even express what I want them to express. The readers decide what I've done and said in them.
I just hope they're not lousy gifts that nobody wants. Ack! My books might be fruitcake!
I hope my first reader likes fruitcake.