Happy Wednesday!
A question for all you writers out there: Do you ever get nervous about showing other people your writing?
The reason why I ask is that, now that I am about 99.9% done my novel, my friends and family (aka. my beta-readers) are asking to read it. And that terrifies me.
I mean, on one hand, I want to share with others what I’ve been working on for the past year. I am proud of my novel and I believe that people will enjoy reading it.
On the other hand, my novel is not perfect. Although this is the 4th draft, I know for a fact that there are inconsistencies and spelling/grammar errors abound! Some scenes are unnecessary! Some scenes I don’t even like! There are so many things that I want to go back and tweak! (Which is why I wrote the 2nd and 3rd and 4th draft without showing anyone…)
I swear, this will be a conversation between me and my (future) grandchild:
Grandkid: Gramma, when can I read your story?
Me: Hang on, dear, I will show you once I finish my 96th draft…
No kidding :’)
Today’s snippet takes place shortly after Matt meets Olivia. Matt’s usual babysitter, Tanya, is away, and Olivia offers to look after his daughter for the evening. Matt and his daughter clean their apartment before she arrives.
Matt arranges the shoes neatly on the shoe rack, while Zelda picks up pencil crayons and plastic bags from the floor. Then, Matt pulls out the vacuum from the cupboard.
“Daddy, why do we gotta clean before Olivia comes?” Zelda asks.
He pauses before inserting the plug into the wall socket. “Well,” He says. “That’s because Olivia is a guest. We want her to feel comfortable at our house, right? When you go to Tiffany’s house, is it clean?”
“Yeah. But Tiffany’s house has a cleaning person who does all the cleaning. Can we have a cleaning person?”
That’s not a surprise. Tiffany’s family lives in a penthouse on Bay Street. Matt and Zelda, on the other hand, lives in a five-story walk-up.
“Maybe one day, Z.”
“Why don’t we clean before Tanya comes?” Zelda asks.
“Well,” he says, stretching out the word. They’ve been used to Tanya coming over to babysit that he’s been slack with the cleaning. “Look, Z, a plane!” He points out the window.
“Oh, really?”
She races over and leans over the windowsill, looking up at the sky. “There’s no plane, Daddy.”
“Oh gee,” Matt says. “I guess it went by too quickly. You know how fast planes can fly?”
“Hmm,” Zelda says. She turns back around, pressing a finger to her lips. “As fast as a car? As fast as a train?”
WIPpet Math: 10 (for October) + 2 (for 2nd Wednesday of the month) = 12 paragraphs
WIPpet Wednesdays is a blog hop where writers can share a snippet from their WIP. The only stipulation is that the excerpt is somehow related to the date. Be sure to check out some of the other lovely WIPpet snippets here. Thank you Emily Wrayburn for hosting.
SOPHIE LI 
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