Regarding your book manuscript. Well, I love novels. I've even started and abandoned writing two. I never showed my progress to anyone, even my beloved late wife. I did show her every day a word-count check I had in my Excel program. This measured my daily averages.At one stage I was averaging 3,000 new words a day. But I mistook quantity for quality, and lost faithand interest in my novel writing.
My expertise is journalism: the writing of articles.
I'm not the right person to show your novel to. Actually I think you should show it to no one until it's finished, and then, only to agents and publishers. Like all aspiring novelists you've started off by investing some time and effort in writing part of your novel, and now before you invest more blood-and-tears, you want to know: "Is this any good? Is this worth finishing?" What does anyone's opinion matter? If I tell you the synopsis represents the best concepts and ideas I have EVER known in 55 years of reading novels, and the first chapter represents the crispest, punchiest, most awe-inspiring quality of writing I have EVER read, and that I can't WAIT for the rest of the book . . . What would this mean? NOTHING. It's one person's opinion about a synopsis and a first chapter. Of an unfinished book. And I could be completely wrong. Also, the book may never get finished. You must believe in your novel, and it matters not a toss what other people think, whether they like it or don't like it. The world's most successful novelists (J K Rowling, Stephen King, John Grisham, etc) are disliked and ignored by the overwhelming majority of novel-buyers and novel-readers (and snobby reviewers). What's this fact mean? Not much . . . it means they write for their own audiences and don't give a toss that most readers ignore them and think they write rubbish. When you've had your 15th book published, when you've made millions and received stunning literary awards, 99% of the world's 7 billion people will go to their graves not knowing your name and never having read one of your books. So what? FIRST you must finish your novel. EDIT and RE-WRITE until you're happy. Then start submitting it, never taking rejection personally and always submitting to a new publisher. Eventually it WILL be published.
But it all starts with you already BELIEVING in your own work, not asking ME, who's a mere reader of novels, not an editor or critic of novels, and whose opinion of your unfinished novel simply doesn't matter. The only questions are: what do YOU think of it? Will you put in the hard yards? And, will you finish it? Let me know by email your thoughts about what I've written here.