{"id":849,"date":"2009-06-28T00:19:09","date_gmt":"2009-06-28T07:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/?p=849"},"modified":"2009-06-28T00:26:18","modified_gmt":"2009-06-28T07:26:18","slug":"thank-you-readers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/thank-you-readers\/","title":{"rendered":"Thank you readers"},"content":{"rendered":"

I appreciate my first readers very much, even when it\u00a0hurts. \u00a0Especially<\/em> when it hurts.<\/p>\n

Today I got the comments back from a longtime Quarkie friend on Genesis Earth,<\/em> and she told me that, in her opinion, the book still needs a lot of work.\u00a0\u00a0However, she made it very clear when (and why) she was bored, when (and why) she was interested, and where (and why) she would stop reading. \u00a0Thankfully, she kept reading and gave me useful feedback right up to the end.<\/p>\n

My friend’s comments helped me to rethink several weak points \u00a0of my novel. \u00a0In particular, her anthropology experience helped her to pick up on some racist undertones that I didn’t intend and hadn’t realized were there. \u00a0If my story would have appeared in print like that, I would have been flamed up and down the sf community! \u00a0Without her feedback, I probably wouldn’t have picked up on that.<\/p>\n

The feedback did more than point out problems, however; it helped me to rethink these problems and begin to find new, innovative solutions. \u00a0Rather than getting me angered or depressed, the criticism stoked my creative engines by getting me to take a step back and rethink my story from the ground up. \u00a0Though the feedback was harsh (basically, “I’d throw this book across the room at this point”) it was extremely helpful and got me more enthused than ever to write.<\/p>\n

Receiving criticism and advice is a very delicate thing, especially for a budding writer. \u00a0If you try to follow every peice of feedback you recieve, your book will inevitably tank. \u00a0However, rejecting criticism is also tough because you don’t always know why you’re doing it. \u00a0There is a fuzzy grey area between rejecting a comment because it’s not right for your story, and rejecting it because it rubbed your ego in the wrong way.<\/p>\n

I don’t ever want to reject critical feedback because it hurts. \u00a0After all, it’s not about me at all–it’s about the story.<\/p>\n

Criticism is never “right” or “wrong,” “good” or “bad.” It is only “useful” or “not useful.” To pick out the useful feedback, you always<\/em> have to listen to–and appreciate–every piece of feedback that you get. \u00a0Only after you’ve done this can you can say (in private!) “no, this isn’t right for my work.”<\/p>\n

In the meantime, thank everyone who takes the time and effort to read your work and comment on it. \u00a0They’ve done you a huge<\/em> service, and the last thing they deserve is to be attacked by an egocentric, peurile, self-righteous amateur. \u00a0Honest criticism, no matter how much it hurts, is the best thing any writer can receive.<\/p>\n

On that note, I want to thank all my first readers for helping me with my novel, Genesis Earth<\/em>! \u00a0I genuinely appreciate all of your comments.\u00a0You’ve helped me to step back and see my work for what it is. \u00a0You are helping me to make this novel a stronger, better book, and that means more to me than you know. \u00a0So thank you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I appreciate my first readers very much, even when it\u00a0hurts. \u00a0Especially when it hurts. Today I got the comments back from a longtime Quarkie friend on Genesis Earth, and she told me that, in her opinion, the book still needs a lot of work.\u00a0\u00a0However, she made it very clear when (and why) she was bored,… Continue reading Thank you readers<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[32],"tags":[252,157,158,122,8,20,599,134],"class_list":["post-849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ge","tag-criticism","tag-feedback","tag-first-readers","tag-friends","tag-writing-in-general","tag-quark-writing-group","tag-thoughts-reflections","tag-writing-advice","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-dH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=849"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":855,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849\/revisions\/855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}