I sent off the first chapters of my manuscript for critique last week. Old friends and fellow writers held my temperamental, sometimes ugly baby at their mercy. To critique. To read. To shred into 90,000 rough pieces.

Except for the few brief snippets I’ve posted here, no one had read any of it yet. Not even my Hubby. {To be fair, I know he’d just say, “It’s great.” Though the sentiment may keep me from going all medieval, it isn’t particularly helpful in developing the work.}

Now they have.

Three different people with three vastly different opinions.  No one told me to toss it into the grill and use it for fuel for my 4th of July barbeque. Not one said I should wipe it from my hard drive and fill the memory space with ALF reruns instead.

But I have quite a bit of work to do to whip these words into shape.  I’ll be hiding in the depths of my manuscript for a while if you need to find me.

Blogger/Writer Tip:

Thanks to the helpful and generous writers at Writer Unboxed I’ve discovered an amazing tool for all bloggers and writers: EditMinion.com. Paste in your text (it seems to handle at least a couple thousand words in one bite) and it spits out a list of issues you may want to check.

The program highlights all of these issues in your text enabling you check them, change them, or curse yourself for having so many sentences that end in a preposition.  Though it cannot totally replace a thorough proofread, it certainly helps to pick out things your eyes may glaze over.  And it’s free. Check it out.