One of the things that I have learned in my tenure as a writer is that no story is perfect on its first draft. Everything needs revision of some sort. I’ve generally got it down to a science by doing four drafts:

1. First draft, which has errors, inconsistencies, and notes of things that I need to fix, rewrite, or research. 

2. Second draft, where I go through everything in [square brackets] to make sure I’ve told the story the way I want to tell it. 

3. Third draft, otherwise known as the editing draft — checking for grammar, spelling, usage, and the Six Words. (Sometimes this is broken down into 3A and 3B.)

4. Fourth and final draft, which is the one that I submit or publish. 

When I finish writing a book, like I did with the GWWA story, I try to send out my first draft to people so they can look for plot holes, dangling plot threads, inconsistencies, and the like. The problem is that it’s hard to find people who are willing to read an entire novel and give me feedback. 

For the GWWA story, one of my exes (who I’m on good terms with) said she’d read the book. Over the course of two weekends she did so, and she had very little commentary. She also told me she really enjoyed it. 

I’m from the school of thought that if people haven’t ripped apart your draft then you haven’t found the right people to read your story, but what if I just wrote a good story? What if I put my decades of writing knowledge to work and there’s really nothing for my ex to critique. I mean, it’s possible, right? 

I’m still looking for at least one more person to read the first draft before I start editing. Maybe that person will find things for me to fix, or maybe they won’t. Maybe it’s just a good book. 

Too bad my impostor syndrome keeps kicking in and not allowing me to believe that.