tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11291165.post-6405725931952533822008-01-17T16:22:00.000-06:002008-01-17T16:22:00.000-06:00Ralph Keyes has a chapter on this in his excellent "The Courage to Write." It starts off with this quote from Toni Morrison: "Solitude, competitiveness, and grief are the unavoidable lot of a writer only when there is no organization or network to which he can turn."<BR/><BR/>It's a personal choice, and while I wouldn't recommend anyone talk about a work until it's done, getting an objective view on it later can be key.<BR/><BR/>The one thing to be clear about at the start is that you actually want honest feedback. Anyone can give compliments - it's the ones who can see where your work can be improved, and get that across, that count.<BR/><BR/>And even then there's often hard feelings. Tennyson once went to a friend's for lunch and afterwards showed him a poem. His friend said, "I shouldn't publish that if I were you." Tennyson bristled. "If it comes to that," he said, "the sherry you served was downright filthy."steve in mainehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15026970188928733645noreply@blogger.com