There is a saying in French, “Il faut tourner sa langue 7 fois dans sa bouche avant de parler”.

Literally: « One should always turn his tongue 7 times in his mouth before speaking ».

Less literally: “Think twice before you speak”

I have to not apply that rule to blogging! I think too much before hitting the “publish” key. (I hope I don’t discourage anyone now… Yes, there is thinking behind all those silly posts… Do you still like me?) I should just write, re-read to correct typos and hit the key to publish. What bad could come out of it anyway? If I had thousands of people reading, I could get concerned about readers having a negative reaction, but I am far from there… And I could always retrieve a post that didn’t please the audience to stop the hate-mailing. And overall, I just don’t post sensitive thoughts, so there is no big threat to begin with…

Why do I complain like that? Well in my “1^st of January” post, I mentioned I had the idea of posting some of the work I had done a few years ago. My novel… I was thinking of sharing the first few chapters to see what people would think. I wanted to throw a survey first, to see if some of the readers coming by this blog would be interested, but I had a fellow blogger posting a survey on his side today.

So now I feel like a copycat. I am not a copycat…

But life is like that, you wonder if you want to do something, you hesitate, and when you think you can’t do it anymore, you want to do it even more… (I understand myself!)

Hmmm… I can’t use the survey thing, because I am just stubborn in weird ways, but I came up with something. I will create locked posts with bits of the English version of my novel “M”. Let me know if you want the password to them, and I’ll find out how to provide them safely 🙂

I like the idea of testing my writing this way. Because people reading me are so different from one another… Different ages, sexes, cultures, nationalities… It is not like having friends read your work and asking for their comments.

Anyway, my panel hasn’t been very effective yet… My first reader was the friend I was writing the novel for. She is the best public ever, and an avid reader, but she was totally biased. So I couldn’t really take her criticism into account although her good words were a big help to keep me writing. Then I gave a copy of the finished book to 2 other friends who never gave me feedback. So I take for granted either they haven’t read it, or haven’t liked it. Either cases, I don’t really want to know. And last but not least, I have started translating my novel to English to have my Danish veninde read it. She is a sweetheart, and I suspect our friendship is pink-colouring her glasses, but she always had good words for me too…

Soooooo! Just let me know if you want to try “M” out. It is a bit chicklity, and I am no Victor Hugo (thank god, I’d be long dead!! I kind of enjoy my alive state!), but I think it is good enough to give it a try…

So here I go…. Beware “publish key”!

P.S. I just want to reassure my outrunning survey posting friend… I hold no grudge! It was all for the best, I didn’t have questions half as interesting to post anyway 🙂