#NaNoWriMo 2021: Have Your Friends Read Your Book Yet?
Maybe they haven't. And there's a whole bunch of reasons why that might be the case. Don't get worked up about it.
I’ve been seeing a fair amount of anxious tweets over the last month or so, from people who worry about whether their friends really support their writing or not. The most recent iteration went something like this: My friends buy my book, or they tell me they’ve bought my book, but then they never tell me how much they liked it, and they didn’t give me a good review on Goodreads, so I think maybe they didn’t actually like it. Should I say something about it to them, maybe?
No, you should not say something about that to them.
Well, let’s expand that a little bit. If you genuinely want to know what someone close to you thinks about your writing, you should ask them if they’ve had a chance to read it, and listen to what they might have to say about it if they have. (If they haven’t, but it’s clear they might want to, that can be an interesting conversation, too.)
If the main reason you want to know whether someone close to you has read your writing is because you want the ego boost of positive feedback, then I’d recommend you refrain from prodding them.
I firmly believe that part of developing a steady writing practice is surrounding yourself to the fullest extent possible with people who support your ambition of writing and sharing your stories with the world. But people can do that without reassuring you about the quality of any specific piece of writing.
You need people in your life who recognize how much writing means to you, and who encourage you to do the work because they believe you are capable of doing the work. If those people are also interested enough in the stories you tell to want to read your work, maybe even share their reactions with you, that’s great—but it’s enough for them to understand how much work you’ve put into what you do, and to acknowledge and celebrate your success even if their primary reason for doing so is simply recognizing that it matters to you.
And you can offer them the same support for whatever they’re passionate about, even if you don’t quite get it, even if you can’t see why anybody would be into that stuff. It’s enough to know your friends are into it, and it matters enough to them that they’re making space in their lives to pursue it, the same way you pursue your writing.