The gatekeeper

I emailed a link to this blog to a colleague who knows I write children's stories and has been nagging me about showing him a few. Later he told me that he liked them.
“I don’t really want to discuss the stories I’ve posted online,’ I said, hurrying to desk when he seemed set to offer a detailed evaluation.

I’m very cowardly about my children’s fiction, especially when read by adults. I worry whether they think it’s good enough, interesting, engaging for their children. I wonder if they say they like the stories just to be polite or if they would atually buy the book.

I know my final, definitive reader is the child. That’s the person I write for; the one I try to please. However, I see the parent as the gatekeeper; the one who decides whether my stories are worth spending money on or if they should opt a DVD of the ever-reliable Sponge-Bob.

I also linked the blog to some search engines and was pleasantly surprised to note that when I Google my name, the first two entries from the blog come up.