About getting feedback

• Never show a first draft, except to someone who is an experienced reader capable of recognising what the first draft might become (according to the instructor we must expect to go over each text about a 100 times! That's terrible!)
• Don't talk your ideas through with people. You can talk yourself out of a good idea when you see other people's reactions to a half-formed idea.
• Never choose a member of your own family to be your critic. They usually have no idea of the process of writing, even if as readers they have good literary taste. They will also say 'That's not how it happened' more often than you want to hear.