Probably the number one thing that writers struggle with is the question of confidence. Emotionally we carom from one level to another always vulnerable to bad reviews and criticism. Interestingly enough on any given day we could have five fabulous reviews and one poor one and the review we will focus on will be the bad one.All writers receive bad reviews--and yet we take our own bad reviews far more seriously than we do the reviews for other writers' books. I wonder some days if I will ever reach a point when I have enough confidence in my writing to truly ignore the slings and arrows.
How do writers reach that point? Is it at book fifteen? Or book thirty? Is there a magical point that we reach where we will forever more have confidence in our work? I confess I don't know. In the meantime the best I can do is keep writing those things that entertain me and hope, really hope that they entertain someone else, too.
anny
Bad reviews come and go - life is too short to worry about them - move on. As for 'reaching that point' - I simply never had to as I was already there
ReplyDeleteI don't struggle much with reviews so much as I struggle with "am I doing the right thing, writing-wise"? Reviewers come and go, and I don't agonize over them too much. For every bad review, there's a good one, so I figure it all balances.
ReplyDeleteNo, I think about The Career now and again. I'm with small publishers, and I find myself wondering, "should I be trying to find an agent? Should I be aiming for a NY contract?"
I have these little 'wake-up' moments sometimes and I almost always come back to the reason I write:
It's fun. I have fun writing, and I have editors who like my work. Readers seem to like the books. They sell. I have release slots when I want them, and the support of my publishing houses.
Why aggravate my life?
Then I sit back down and work on the next chapter.
Negative comments tend to knock me down for a day or two; never more than a week. And then I throw myself back into my latest wip and shake it off.
ReplyDeleteI think it's more about who we are than where we are that determines our confidence level. We could all learn from AJ, but for some of us, it's not so easily done.
ReplyDeleteLove the pic:)
ReplyDeleteI completely empathize with your sentiments, Anny. Its a roller coaster ride. But do remember YOU have a lot of fans:)
Sometimes the reviews feel personal. I know I shouldn't take it that way, just as I shouldn't take customer's complaints personally. I know better, but sometimes it just happens. Maybe I'm not the only one.
ReplyDeleteI wish I had the kind of confidence to brush off bad reviews, but 90% of the time - I don't. I'm working on it, though. :)
ReplyDeleteI just figure as long as I keep my expectations simple, confidence won't be as big an issue. I'm always worried just before a release that I've not done a good enough job. But then I figure my editor wouldn't let me put something out there that sucked. So I take comfort in that if I get negative feedback.
ReplyDeleteBut I have to say I LOVE that picture. That is the epitome of confidence.
I don't agonize about the occasional bad review as much as I used to. Guess I'm just over it. For every ONE person who doesn't like it, there are ten who DO.
ReplyDeleteRight now I'm just concentrating on telling a story and seeing what happens. For me, when the story is DONE,it's DONE. I don't like to look back at them.