I suppose, I probably should have gotten nervous when the first reader introduced herself by noting what a ballsy thing it was for me to put my work out to the parent/teen book group.

Instead, I figured she was obviously referring to some other event she had witnessed that day, such as a man performing dental surgery with pliers, blindfolded, because  I didn’t see anything scary about surrounding myself in adoration, gushing compliments, and chocolate dipped cookies. Unless of course you’re allergic to chocolate. And I thankfully am not.

However, as I was soon to discover, it was ballsy. And I’m talking, the giant, super hard and arm-dislocating medicine kind.

As I was to discover over the course of the next hour or so:

a) my manuscript is not as done as I thought it was. (crap).

b) girls that read tolstoy don’t like it (but that part, I’m okay with)

c) my manuscript is not as done as I thought it was. (double crap with a dried up, worm riddled, half rotten cherry on top.)

Seriously, after working on that thing for several years, I had never wanted to edit a single paragraph in it again. But turns out, I may have to.  My bubble of manuscript completeness has been burst.

But at least I know what needs to be fixed. SIGH. And hey, no matter what they say, they can’t take the chocolate cookies away.