City Sophisticate: Trust the Process

Oh, the roller coaster that is the creative process....A friend of mine who is an award winning artist recently posted a creative process find outlining the main thought process that one experiences when completing a work. The process is as follows:

1. This is awesome
2. This is tricky
3. This is shit
4. I am shit
5. This might be okay
6. This is awesome

When putting your heart and soul into a task having little to no idea as to how it will pan out or be received by an audience, second guessing the end result is a given. Initially, I began writing my novel as a hobby and a challenge. Many times before I have thought about doing this very thing but just always had some excuse or figment of a road block. "Oh, I'll get to it once I'm done this degree, or find my first full time teaching gig, or later when I've got a few years of teaching under my belt or later when etc....I'm just too busy, there's too much going on..." Here I am on the other side of the excuses and the final plan of attack. The novel is complete and I love that I faced the challenge I set for myself head on, but the questions that irk me remain:
Is it any good?
Will it have an audience?
Is it purely a keepsake for me or is it something worth sharing?

About a third of the way through the writing process I decided that my manuscript would be more. I believed in it, and it's likability to a wide audience. I read it over fully after I added the final word and closed the final quotation. I felt drawn and was able to relate to the experiences of the characters...my characters. I laughed out loud at the funny interactions and intentionally ridiculous bits, but wasn't sure if it was actually funny or simply funny to me because I was so damn delirious and tired from putting every spare moment into writing my 386 page creation. So I read it again, and again, each time becoming more uncertain and less sure of how enticing it may be and as to how well it would engage a reader.

About two weeks ago I sent my manuscript off to be reviewed editorially. My heart was in my throat for the entirety it was undergoing literary autopsy. Meanwhile, I continued to drive myself nutty by returning to its pages and further scrutinizing my efforts. I found myself at stage 3/4 of the creative process. "OMG this is pure poop...it's so expected, no one is going to find this exciting or 'tantalizing'. A year of my life and spare time down the drain." I knew that the only thing that would nudge me on to 5/6 would be a favourable review. Even a "Great debut novel, but needs tweaking and a structural overhaul" would have sufficed.

After a week and a half, my literary judgement day arrived. A single email from my publisher with the subject line Editorial Review Attached sat in my inbox ready for perusal. I felt faint, with eyes half closed I clicked the document. I began reading tentatively. Dumbfounded and in a trance-like state, I searched for the negatives. They never came. Not one negative comment was written about the tale and its structure. All that I was advised to do was to change a couple of words as they were a bit overused, and to double check the French that I included, seeing as a few plurals were used where singular usage belonged. Note to self: Don't attempt to write a novel in French.

The review was comprised of phrases such as 'amusement-filled', 'pure entertainment', 'a romp that is full of energy', 'excellent writing' describing my efforts to create The Tantalizing Tale.

Then I began to think "Did someone pay this reviewer off? Is this for real? Aren't editorial reviews meant to rip apart a seemingly completed work only to cause the author to be knocked down a peg or two causing them the feeling that they are to begin almost entirely from scratch?" I suppose I had been hard enough on myself in the weeks prior as it was.

When I finally came to realize that this was no fluke, that I hadn't received the wrong attachment, that this was intended for me, I wept. Emotion overtook me as I thought about all of the hours I poured my heart out and into creating this tale that I intend as 'pure entertainment'.

That's not to say I'm back to the "this is awesome" stage of the creative process, but I'm well on my way and am sitting at a solid 5. Presently, I'm searching for additional reviews so I can stop asking random people on the street to pinch me back to reality (I'm getting concerned looks), and instead have full confirmation that I can and will reach that final stage of the creative process.