Powerful listener

Last night, I read a few excerpt of my NaNoWriMo novel to my youngest daughter (the other one, not the one doing NaNo). She reads a lot and she is very critical about what she reads. Most of the time, I fear her opinion because she is ruthlessly sharp and vindictive, even though she is the sweetest thing of all.

So I started to read, and of course she pointed out all the words repeating, bad syntax, and lousy action and so on. I kept on reading.

She also pointed out the few jewels in the dialogs and she really preferred the choice of a narration from a character perspective instead of an omniscient narrator. It was more personal, she said, and she felt that she was more into the story right away.

Why I read those excerpts? Not to boost my ego, one might think, but to get an echo of the story and where it was going. For anything I take on in life I create a support team around me and the most important team member is the powerful listener. Someone who reflects and recreates what I say so I can hear what is missing. Or someone that can listen, in such a way, that they can point out what is missing that would make a huge difference if it was there.

I am always profoundly committed to empower that person, so they can be free to speak out and say, even the things that are not pleasant to hear. Why? Because it’s in their listening that I get who I am and what I am up to and what is the best expression of it.

With great respect and love!

A