Can I see you naked for free?

Every now and then, I’m asked by a friend if they can read some of my writing – writing that has not been published yet, that is.

I confess, I usually ignore the request and, should it be repeated, pretend to have forgotten about it.

How rude of me, you might think. After all, shouldn’t I be happy that someone takes an interest in my writing?

On the surface yes, but bear with me, there’s a reason for my lack of enthusiasm.

Not so long ago, I also used to ask author friends to share their unpublished writing with me. In fact, you could argue I downright hassled some of them, if I was very curious about their writing. And, I told myself, as I was an author too, why wouldn’t they want to share their writing with me, as one author to another.

Since I started moving into fiction writing, however, my perception has completely changed…

Now, I don’t mean to belittle my former travel writing career, but it has to be said the emotional investment was minimal compared to how I feel about my fiction (and this will become even more apparent when my collection of short stories is released in the summer). There is far more of me invested in my fictional writing than there ever was in my travel writing. Rather ironic, given that many of my more popular travel features were entirely autobiographical and pretty much followed my adventures from place to place, whereas there are far fewer directly autobiographical elements to my fiction.

It’s just that describing the best bar in Stavanger and the bus timetables in rural Colombia hardly makes you feel like you’re baring your soul to friends and strangers alike.

Sharing my fiction or poetry is another matter.

Friends who take an interest in authors' writing often mean well, as did I at the time, but try to see things in a different light for a second.

If you had artist friends, surely you wouldn’t ask for their original paintings when they were finished? Or ask musician friends for their original demo recording before it had been sent off or released?

A photo of the painting would undoubtedly suffice, or a quick performance of the piece of music in question.

An original piece of writing, once it’s finished but not published, is an original piece of writing nonetheless. If you ask to read it at this stage, you’re essentially asking your author friend if you can see them naked and for free to boot!

And that takes a hell of a lot of trust, on the part of the author.

For an author, sharing their writing before it’s published means giving away your original work. Free of charge. Even if that piece of writing took a long time to create.

That, in a nutshell is why I hesitate to share my work even with friends. Writing is so frequently devalued. Books are deemed too expensive, writing is often free to read online, in give-away magazines etc (admittedly of highly varying quality, but still). Authors are constantly encouraged to provide free copies of their books and do other types of promotions.

If you have author friends and want to take an interest in their work, there are many ways of doing so, other than simply asking to read it for free. If they’re already published, it goes without saying that buying their book(s) is a great way, but even if they’re not, anything from mentioning their website/social media profiles to other friends, to offering them words of encouragement every now and then, is helpful.

After a couple of years of fiction, I’m coming to the conclusion that there’s only one instance when reading your friends’ unpublished writing is helpful:

When the author asks you to.