My Point Person

Last week I talked about it taking a village to raise a writer. I gave three different personalities that most writers need to surround themselves with. One of them was the point person. The person that you trust to read your manuscript. The person that tears your heart apart with their wise, insightful criticisms, but sews it back together with a mountain of praise on your book.

For me, that person is my mother. She’s a voracious reader so she knows a good book when she reads one.  And she doesn’t pussyfoot around when something isn’t right in my book–she flat out tells me when something is wrong. No flattery, no sugar-coating. But that’s what I need, fast and efficient, like ripping off a Band-Aid. I like her to make her point so I can make mine.  I remember arguing with her about a scene in my book that she didn’t understand. While trying to explain it to her, she stopped me and said, “Are you going to be sitting down next to every person who reads this part in your book? If you have to explain, then it’s not working.” Sometimes she didn’t know what wasn’t working–I would have to figure that out on my own–but she always steered me in the right direction. She knows my full potential, and won’t stop with me until I give her my best.

I get clingy and needy when she reads my manuscript–she won’t read in front of me anymore. (Once I stared at her for I know to be at least thirty minutes to see if she laughed at the parts I wanted her to laugh at. She did.) So now I have to wait by the phone until she calls me. And when she does the ripping begins and the stitching back together takes place. And I can’t imagine having it any other way.