Do You Show your Stuff or Not?

[aeriedraconia.livejournal.com]

Do you show anyone your writing while you're working on it or do you wait until you've finished? Do you share immediately upon finishing or do you wait until you've been able to give it a second going over or final polish?

Comments

[woodrunner.livejournal.com]

In a word, no. I don't show anything while I'm writing it, at least not beyond the occasional snippet, and those snippets usually don't reveal too much of what I'm working on. The bra and panties don't get flashed at people until I've put the flab through the exercise machine and it looks half-decent in a bathing suit.


The novel that's out went through this process:

The verbal diarrhea that makes it on the page for the first time? No.

The second time when I make an attempt to fix the plot because there was no plot? No.

The third, fourth and fifth times, which are false starts of the highest order, until I realize that number six fixes all ailments? No.

The sixth one, which is unpolished, and becomes number seven after I fix some glaring errors and put in some additional points that I forgot on the first go through? Yes.

Yes, because by that point I no longer recognize the errors nor what's missing in the whole manuscript, and I need New Pairs of Eyes.