Feet of Clay.

I've been trying to think of what to say to those brave souls who volunteered to read my book.

I'm trying to work the expectations game, like Romney and Obama, who are both horrible debaters, according to their followers.

Hey, I'm a horrible writer.

But I want to get better.

It takes balls to expose your work to the possible umbrage of others.  But, going in, I'm reminding myself this isn't the end of it nor are they the end readers.  The end reader is someone far away who doesn't know me or my blog or anything about me -- except the work itself.

I think there is a tendency to think that if they like my blog, they'll like my writing.  I already found out that isn't true with a couple of readers of my previous effort.  Believe me, writing a blog and writing fiction are completely different things.

So, here's what I would say.

I'm just a struggling writer.  I've taken this lump of clay and shaped it into something hopefully recognizable, but...it needs more work. 

Please don't pulverize my lump of clay, but see if you can see shapes I've missed, see where I might add something, or shave something off.  Polish off the rough edges.  That kind of thing.

Hard as it is to take criticism, getting rejected by a publisher is harder.  So I'll take the damage now, where the cost isn't so high.

Besides, like I say, I just want to make the book better.