I’m editing. Again. (Still?) (I know.) But I’m polishing this book up to be nice and shiny, and hopefully something that most people will love. I know it won’t please everyone. I’m okay with that. (Mostly.) And I’m going to do my darnedest to not read any negative reviews. (Hopefully, curiosity will just kill the cat, and not me.)
Speaking of reviews, “Intuition” has gotten one review on Amazon so far, and has been reviewed several times on Goodreads. If you’ve read it and wouldn’t mind leaving a short review about what you thought, I’d really appreciate it. Reviews help sell books, help spread the word. And though I’m not technically “selling” a book right now because the short story is free, getting more and more people to read it will help spread the word about INTANGIBLE and get people excited about its release. I can use all the help I can get in doing that!
If you’ve told anyone about “Intuition” or left a review, then you have my heartfelt thanks. I truly appreciate it. :-)
One of the things I’m doing in this edit is removing all the swearing. I really didn’t want to write a book chock full of swears and was keeping it mild, but the thing about swearing is that if you do it wrong, it really stands out. Like, say, if you’re trying to keep it mild by having your characters say “Oh, crap!” when they’re really in an “Oh, f***!” sort of situation. You can see the problem, I’m sure. It’s extremely noticeable when it’s wrong. So I either needed to take the swearing up a notch (or four or five) or just take it out completely. I opted to take it out, to see if that would work. And it does. It totally works, the swearing was unnecessary. (Whew.)
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On a completely unrelated but gorgeous note, if you haven’t seen this already, I really think you should. Stunning. The wild green and red colors you’ll see just above the atmosphere are the aurora borealis (aka northern lights). Several times you’ll see lightning storms that look like lots of flash photography. And the grid of lights from cities and towns across the land looks like little strings of holiday lights. Really, this video is just so amazing.
The photos were taken from August through October of 2011 from the International Space Station. This video was made by Michael Koenig, and if you click on it, you can go read his notes about it.
Our world is beautiful, isn’t it?
Hope your week is starting out beautifully, too.
Interesting video. Out of curiosity: why do you plan to avoid reading negative reviews?
Because I’ll take them personally, and I don’t need that bringing me down. I’ve seen a lot of negative reviews that are just downright nasty. There’s no need for people to be mean, and yet it seems the anonymity of the Internet inspires some to be just that.
It’s fine to not like something, and to state why you feel that way as long as you’re being factual and polite about it. In fact, that’s really helpful in book reviews because that lets other readers get a better sense of whether they’re going to like a particular book–it helps to get the right book into the right hands. Every opinion is valid. I’m certainly not going to be dismayed when someone writes a negative review. I assume it will happen because there will be people who don’t like my book for whatever reason. It just won’t be their thing or the writing style doesn’t appeal to them at all.
Someone disliking your book feels really personal because you pour your heart into it; you work on it for hundreds or maybe thousands of hours, maybe months, maybe years; you stress over every single word, making sure the exact right word is used every time. You edit and revise the whole thing seven or eight times, you work your butt off to make it as perfect and polished as you can. It is truly a labor of love, emphasis on both the “labor” and “love” parts.
Of the few reviews I’ve had–which are all positive so far–even within those there have been some little things that hurt at bit when I first read them. (I’m a sensitive person, it’s true.) I’m trying to remember to read objectively. But in all reality, it’s likely that I will end up not reading most reviews so I’m not swayed up or down by others’ opinions.
I guess it comes down to that I don’t want my sense of self worth to hinge on whether people like or dislike my books. It seems healthier to focus on writing more and writing better, and that’s what I plan to do. :-)
Were I a writer, I’d have the same problem. If something can possibly be taken personally, I’ll manage to do so in every situation. Constructive criticism, said kindly, can be like gold … and it’s also just as hard to find I think. May you get the best of both worlds! Also, thanks for that video … utterly gorgeous, and I had my boys watch it right before bed and it really intrigued them too.
I know! Isn’t that video amazing? I’ve watched it several times, so have my kids. Really so cool.
I have to say that with my beta readers, who read the book and gave me feedback (aka told me what was wrong with it–which is what I asked them to do), even though I didn’t take offense at anything anyone said, I did have some moments of feeling like I was writing crap, that I just couldn’t do it. And no one said anything bad/nasty! They just pointed out issues here and there or inconsistencies and slight problems. And their comments were right on for everything. I could see that immediately. But still, I had those down moments. I got over it quickly enough, and got to work making changes, and the book is so much better and stronger for their constructive criticism. Totally invaluable.
But that’s also different than negative reviews when the book is done and I’ve moved on to the next one in the series. Not healthy at that point for me to get my feelings hurt over someone not liking my book. And not worth it.