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The proverbial shoe was on the other foot last Friday. After years of critiquing my students' writing, I decided it was time to put myself on the hotseat. I took a chapter of my novel-in-progress to the Baltimore Book Festival for a free one-on-one feedback session sponsored by the CityLit Project.

I have a couple of what Julia Cameron calls "friendly readers" who have read several scenes from the novel. Their feedback is always constructive and encouraging, and their enthusiasm about the story and the characters gives me the energy to keep writing. But asking for a critique from an experienced writer who knew nothing about me felt like a bigger risk.

Was I doubtful/nervous/terrified beforehand? Yes.
Did I go for it anyway? Yes.
And I'm glad I did.

So on Friday afternoon, after much fretting about what scene to bring and whether it was really ready for an objective pair of eyes (ask my husband, he'll tell you), I sat down with Gregg Wilhelm, the Executive Director of the CityLit Project, who has worked in various aspects of publishing for several different publishing houses. He read quietly, scribbling notes on the pages as he went, and I watched, fidgeting with my pen and reminding myself to stay detached from the outcome and open to his suggestions.

I was pleasantly surprised when he came back with largely positive comments. He said the scene as a whole was well constructed and complimented me on capturing the personalities of the characters in dialogue as well as through their actions. He suggested that I add a bit more exposition -- some details of the room and of the characters' appearances, things that the point-of-view character would notice -- to set the scene more clearly for the reader. We also talked about some specific instances of word choice that will add polish.

What else did I learn Friday? That I can afford to go a lot easier on myself when I am drafting new scenes. That it's okay to let my characters ramble and to use too many adverbs and adjectives and to let some cliches creep in here and there (kind of like that!). And that for now, I can give the madman more room to create and imagine and breathe life into the characters and the story without worrying about how it sounds or whether it will be good enough. That's what the revision process is for.