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Constructive Criticism or Just Plain Mean-aka What’d You Say About My Book?

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If you’ve been standing anywhere near me in the last three months or so, chances are you know I wrote a book -queue gratuitous plug here (its due out in August, like my facebook author page, hit me up on twitter blah blah blah). I, like most wannabe writers, thought writing a book was the hard part. It turns out, I was wrong. I now know why people go the “traditional” publishing route vs. indie publishing: its so much easier to have a team of people for all the little things they never tell you about…and also because most of us get rejected by traditional publishers repeatedly.

I blame NaNoWriMo for this. It seemed so inviting: Write 50,000 words in a month and win prizes. 120,000 words and five revisions later and I’m furiously googling ISBN numbers, bar codes, book cover designers, e-book launches and ten thousand other things I never considered when I thought I’d sit down to write a sarcastic book about a girl who finds out she has a strange affinity with the dead. I wanted to write a young adult paranormal book that wasn’t exclusionary. I wanted diverse characters with different ethnic and social backgrounds, I wanted it to be LGBT+ inclusive without pandering. I wanted to write a book I would read. The book is a lot like me. Okay, its exactly like me, a little dark and a lot sarcastic, though, my characters love lives are much more interesting than mine lately but that’s a depressing blog post for another time. What I’m trying to say is, I poured my blood, sweat and buckets of tears into this book.

So, now is the time where I am allowing a chosen few (read: pretty much anybody willing to read it) to beta read the book. Up until this point, only three people had read the copy. First, I let my best friend read it. She read the rough draft, the poor thing. She loved it but I now know the rough draft is never, ever to be seen by other people’s eyes. It’s like an outline. It should only be seen publicly as a joke when you have reached J.K. Rowling levels of success and you want people to know you are an actual human and not some writing Goddess.

Anyway, I digress.

After subjecting my friend to the entire book, I then gave the first 10 chapters to my sister, my niece and my daughter…and waited…and waited…and waited. Finally, after harassing them for weeks, two out of three of them read it. They said they liked it but again, rough draft = bottom of kitty litter pan soooo more than likely they were just being nice.

Fast forward four months. I’ve now revised the book several times, have given it to five people I know and two strangers I don’t (Thats why they’re strangers). This is the part where I’m supposed to ask for brutal feedback. Pure honesty. Just let me have it. Here’s the problem. I am the worst person in the entire universe at taking criticism. Like the literal worst person ever.

Blame it on my birth sign, Virgos are great at dishing out the criticism but complete shit at taking it. We’ll smile and tell you its fine but its not fine. It’s so not fine. I internalize every tiny critique, no matter how small. You could blame it on being bullied as a kid or on me being born a total wuss. Whatever it is. I hate it. My roommate/best friend, the one forced to read the dreaded rough draft, likes to dole out feed back in a safe and nurturing environment (did I mention she works in psych?) so as not to send me into a complete downward spiral of melodramatic crying that usually ends in me wearing a snuggie for a week and popping benzo’s like tick-tacks. (Or as we like to call it in our house, Tuesday). And no, she’s not my therapist. That would imply I paid her.

I’m lucky in that most people have been really kind. They tell me they like the book, they are invested in my characters, they can picture the scenes in their head (high praise as far as I’m concerned) and it makes me want to spin around with my arms spread like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music. I’m really not selling this whole not crazy thing very well.

With he good comes the bad, however, and there have also been a few people who have said a couple of negative things. Really, tiny negative things, usually sandwiched between some nice things but still…negative. Now, because this is my first book, I don’t know how much stock to put into a few mildly negative comments, especially when the comments are somewhat vague. Also, how do I deal with the real life criticism that’s about to come my way on a larger scale when whoever reads my book has instant access to Amazon and their reviews?

I have to toughen up…but how?

How do I feel my feelings while I write but then turn that shit off when it comes to people’s opinions of my writing? I mean, I love my book, I love my characters. I am attached to these people on an emotional level. When they laugh, I laugh, when they cry…well, sometimes I still laugh because in this fictional universe I am God and I do what I want. But, still. How do I learn to toughen up and deal with criticism without turning into either a sobbing mess on the floor or somebody who rolls their eyes and makes a face every time somebody tells me their opinion. I try to act humble (Shut up, I do) but I live for praise. I need it to live. I’m an attention whore like that. I can’t keep terrorizing my family members with 3 am phone calls begging them to tell me what so and so may have meant when they said that they didn’t “get” the brilliant joke I made at the end of Chapter 6. I really can’t. They’ve told me to stop calling them. Some even blocked my number.

So, now, as I move forward and share this book with book bloggers and random strangers and mean kids who will read my book just to act super unimpressed with me, I am unsure how to prepare myself. I’m not sure which is worse, the internet trolls who will just talk smack about anybody, or the people who sincerely read my book just so they can tell me they didn’t like the way I worded something or thought my plot sagged in the middle.

People are going to pick it apart at some point. I’m writing a multi-pov young adult book, some people hate that. I’m writing a book where one of the four main characters is gay. Some people won’t like that…I don’t care that they won’t like it, but they’ll tell me anyway. Some people won’t like my setting, my sarcasm, my ending…the list goes on forever. But the truth is, I need to find a way to be content enough with my writing that I don’t want to quit or slit my wrists every time somebody says something negative or has feedback.

If any of you have published a book and have feedback, I would love to hear it.



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