Handling the Truth: a reader's first words

I was suffering with fear before these 250 proof pages of Handling the Truth.  Perhaps I want too much for this book on the making of memoir, expect too much from it.  Perhaps it is never easy for me to read my own work, to not get into some scuffle with myself.  Whatever it was, I was one-hundred percent procrastinating.  Writing Florence.  Making soup.  Folding laundry.  Taking a walk.  Battling spider webs.  Reviewing student applications.  Calling a friend.

Inevitably, it was time.  I stood at my desk (sitting would not do) and read.  I had a new red pen, ready to attack my own words, certain that they'd need attacking.

I had reached page 100 or so when an email came in from the only person who has read this book, besides my agent and my friends at Gotham. I stopped.  Clicked the note open.  Read. 

No one really knows how meaningful the first words of encouragement can be, or how much peace they give a writer.

Thank you, John.