Elevator speech aka 5 second synopsis

I had my first "read and critique" sessions tonight for Trading Faces (don't panic, ladies, it's just a working title!!) with my 8 and 12-year-old girls and my 66-year-old mom. I figured I'd go ahead and get both ends of the spectrum right off.

Mom was tough. I knew she would be, so I gave her all kinds of instructions before I even handed it to her. I told her she had to give me the Toastmaster's Oreo Critique, aka Sandwich Critique (good feedback, bad feedback, good feedback. Get it? The bad is sandwiched by the good, so it doesn't hurt so bad!). Then I asked her if she needed more time to think. Hehe...she did. :) I need the tough feedback, so thanks, Mom (I know you're out there)!

Dang, I should have named this blog "Asides" or something like that. I just LOVE parentheses. I am making myself go back and remove every set of parentheses I can in my writing, because most of the time I don't even need them. The cheese can stand alone. They're just so much fun, though, and it's writing exactly like my mind is speaking. See, there are others in there.

S'winnyway...I need the tough as well as the adoration my lovely girl children gave me this evening. They are so sweet. I made them pinkie-promise to tell me the truth even if they thought it would hurt my feelings. I'm convinced now they're really good liars. :) Emilie gave me an 8 out of 10 on a scale of comparing to other books she reads. I asked her how I could improve and make it a 10. She gave me two things:

1) Use the right names for my characters. Haha. I kept switching the names of two of the girls in one scene, and I re-named another girl that shows up at the end of both the first and third chapters. I sat in on Emilie reading the last bit out loud to Kristen when I went to tuck them in, and Emilie very obnoxiously said the correct name loudly and slowly each time she read one or the other.

2) Change the words she circled to words she knows. There were only two or three, so that made me happy. Formica, tenure, and hmm...can't remember the others just now.

So, we were sitting at the dinner table earlier after they had read the first part. My 17-year-old son walked in right about then from music practice, right as Emilie was giving her synopsis of the book thus far:

"She's got a jacked-up hairdo and her dad needs HELP."

I was pretty pleased with that. It about summed it up. I think I'll keep that for the cover blurb.

:)