Book reviews and how to survive them

Every once in a while I repost this from several years ago. If you're a creative type, I hope it helps inspire you to keep creating.

“I have spent a good many years since―too many, I think―being ashamed about what I write. I think I was forty before I realized that almost every writer of fiction or poetry who has ever published a line has been accused by someone of wasting his or her God-given talent. If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that's all.” --Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

There have been lots of public meltdowns lately about bad reviews. Authors take to social media to have a public hissy fit over a bad review, which then turns into a viral shouting match. Social media makes it all too easy to lash out, which never ends well. Read BookRiot on recent internet brawls over bad reviews (and why you should never do it).

But the truth is bad reviews hurt. They do. There’s no way around it. I’ve received my share of great reviews, and then the less-than-glowing reviews, too. We all do, it’s part of the job of being a writer, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s not easy being at the mercy of public opinion.

You’ve worked on a book for a year (or two, or three or god knows, 5 or more), you’ve polished, you’ve created something from nothing and had the faith in yourself and in your skill and in your publisher’s vision for the work to send it out there into the world like a toddler to their first day of pre-school... and for whatever reason, or for reasons that you can’t fathom, the teacher dislikes your child.

It’s devastating. Of course you’re hurt. Astonished. You may lose faith in yourself and your ability, at least for a while. You’re helpless because your only option, truly, is to take it on the chin. All you can do is choose to stop writing forever (or threaten to for a while), OR wallow for a little, lie around for as long as it takes, then as Mr. Marley said, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over.

Here’s the truth: you aren’t alone.

Everyone who has ever created anything has received a terrible review for it somewhere, even if buried among the thousands of good ones. Even Stephen King. Even E.B. White (whose Stuart Little was universally hated by critics when it came out in 1947). Even Shakespeare had his “slings and arrows” from the critics. Once loosed upon it, the world can say whatever it likes about your creation. Art is vulnerability.

If you're looking for some perspective on reviews, here are 5 ideas that might help:

1.      Read historical reviews. A quick web search will turn up a heady cornucopia of terrible reviews for now-famous books. Here’s what Emily Bronte had to endure from Graham’s magazine about Wuthering Heights:  “How a human being could have attempted such a book as the present without committing suicide before he had finished a dozen chapters, is a mystery. It is a compound of vulgar depravity and unnatural horrors.”  Start with this link for more examples of terrible reviews for famous books from Flavorwire if you like, but don’t stop there, misery truly does love company.

2.      "Sucks like you”: go to youtube and watch all the hilarious videos of authors reading their 1-star amazon reviews, there are dozens of them. Start here: Authors Read Terrible Reviews

3.      The 10% rule: peruse all your favourite authors and books with hundreds or thousands of reviews on amazon and Goodreads, and note that Neil Gaiman, Anne Rice, Stephen King, J.K. Rowling (add your favourite author to this list) all have roughly a 90% positive rating (give or take a percentage or two), meaning that close to 10% of their reviews are 1- or 2-stars. Go look. It’s a thing I’ve noticed: 1 in 10 people (minimum) will hate a book, no matter what it is. That holds true for yours too, unfortunately. The bigger point is it's not logical to expect that everyone will like your book, since precedent, statistics and human nature make that impossible. 

4.      Other authors won’t recoil from you: your family and loved ones mean well by telling you not to worry about your bad review (bless them) and they think you’re a great writer, but they don’t really get the self-doubt a bad review can inflict upon a writer. You should also brace yourself and have a business-like chat with your publisher and your editor, if it’s an important national reviewer who has disliked your book (likely you’ll get quite a bit of support from them too). But your best friends right now are other authors. Hopefully you’ve got a group of trusted authors to talk to, commiserate with, run ideas past (and if you don’t, get on that). Share your bad review with them, let them lavish kindness (and copious amounts of wine or whatever) upon you, and remind you that it’s a rough job, and you’re not alone. Read blog posts about how other writers deal with less-than-stellar reviews (which clearly you’re doing right now, thank you).

5.      What did I learn? It’s okay to write as many clever retorts to your bad reviewer as you like in your diary but DO NOT PUBLISH THEM ANYWHERE, EVER. You can wallow for a bit, even grieve (because it does feel a little like the public death of your book), cry, wander around in a fog for a while, tell yourself you liked your book, you know it’s good … then after the initial pain subsides, decide whether or not you’re ever going to read any more reviews. Plenty of authors don’t read reviews. Get your publicist or editor (or trusted friend, someone who knows your work and you well) to read it and distill it for you. Or just don’t read them.  And once again (if you didn’t look at it at the top of the page) read this blog post from BookRiot about why it’s so important to NOT respond to bad reviews (they specifically refer to Goodreads, but frankly it holds true for anywhere else, too): Dear Authors, Don't Respond to Goodreads Reviews

After a while doing this job of being a writer, I've realized that what's really important is to keep writing. It's always great to receive a good review, and thank you to the many, many reviewers who have liked or loved my books, it's really appreciated. But also thank you to anyone who has taken the time to read my books, frankly, whether they liked them or not.  

Finally, ask yourself this: did you write your book to please reviewers, or did you write it because it was a brain tick and you needed to write it or die? If you told the story you wanted to tell, and told it as well as you could, then you stuck to your artistic vision and that’s the greatest success any writer could have as far as I’m concerned. Kudos to all of us who manage that.

If you're still reading, check out pundit Chuck Wendig on "25 Hard Truths About Writing and Publishing." As he says: "Go forth and art harder, little pen-monkey. Because really, what else can you do?" 

Or 2018 UPDATE, for a slightly different take: Book Marks on "When Writer's Respond" (with thanks to Rachel Seigel for this one).

The January Poet

The January Poet

I have barely moved all day.

Island House by Baye Hunter
www.bayehunter.com

This is January.

Full, replete, burrowed, dark.

I have sprouted a light down,

and a long snout to warm under my

new tail.

I find comfort in words like “root cellar”

and “tuber”

and blink when the sun startles the living room.

It is still and warm and could use

a few more leaves around the place.

Only short words will come to me,

as I move sluggish,

stripping the bark from mid-winter trees.

Strobing the few lights in the chemicals

that are left to me:

a low grade imagination and burgeoning hips.

I wait in the snow for angry neighbours to chase me

with brooms.

Scat, you!

But no-one notices my grubby boots
and January coat.

She’s just another writer come out of the dark woods
back into the house,

with empty pockets for words.

PD/Jan. 3/2012

A visit to the costume shop, a day skiing, a guitar visitor

A few February updates for you:

AUTHOR VIRTUAL VISITS

FIREFLY went to Thunder Thighs costume shop last week, while I was getting photos for school visits together. The Corseted Lady costume shop in the book is based on Thunder Thighs, the real costume shop run by my extended family. More images to come.

If you're looking for an author virtual visit, I still have some availability!  Here is the WITS Author Visit Subsidy page. You may get a grant to invite me to talk to your class.

FOREST OF READING

Look for my Forest of Reading Red Maple presentation on February 11, 2022, available on the Ontario Library Association website that day.

WINTER WINTER WINTER

How are you getting through this interminable winter? I've had a few days skiing, bright blue sky and white winter snow just north of Toronto. Cold though. I've cross-country skied most of my life, here in Ontario, in Alberta and Quebec. If there is snow, you might as well find a way to enjoy it.

Also, I had a visitor come and hang out in my office last week (son came for a visit). I snuck a photo of him playing my Yamaha classical guitar in my messy office. Note the Vaseline lip balm for general dried out winter lips.

That helped with winter, too. 

Hope you're doing okay ... miss everyone.

Teenagers in my basement

WELCOME! THIS BLOG ROLLS OVER 100,000 VISITS TODAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2019! 

To celebrate, below is my first ever blog post in this space, from August 25, 2011. Today is the day this blog will hit 100,000 views, so it's taken 8 years to achieve that milestone. Thank you to everyone for visiting over the  years! 

Note: my first few posts didn't have images, or links. Wow.

When I reposted it on August 27, 2013, here's the introduction I wrote: I must be feeling nostalgic today. It's the end of summer, I always am at this time of year. So, I went looking through some old blog posts. I found this one, the first post I did, almost exactly two years ago to the day. The books mentioned are published or about to be, and WE have a dog now. But the rest rings truer than ever.

And below is what I wrote on August 25, 2011. My third book, The Gargoyle at the Gates (2012), was about to publish and I was signing the contract for my fourth, The Strange Gift of Gwendolyn Golden (2014). I am currently about to edit my 12th book, Quinn and the Quiet, Quiet (2019). The "teenagers" are now 21 and 24. Time, she flies.

Enjoy Teenagers in my basement:

"It's been a long summer. I'm a writer, and I haven't written. I'm a mother, too, and I haven't mothered. At least, I haven't felt like I have mothered, not in the traditional sense of the word.

No, this summer has been about keeping track of the teenagers in my life, largely by counting how many pairs of gigantic shoes are at the front door. This isn't really mothering, is it? Counting shoes? Keeping track?

I suppose I HAVE mothered in the traditional sense, by buying large quantities of food. And by daily tidying of the teen-pit in the basement, after the bodies who own the shoes have risen, washed and left the building. This usually happens around 1:00 p.m. or so. Never before.

There is little talk in this strange summer of shoe-counting. There is some laundry. There is some food preparation. There are agreed-upon phone-calls and texting and sleeping arrangements. There is allotted money amounts changing hands.

There is a craving from me, to hug someone.

I have been watching other mothers of teens, furtively btw. Some are friends, many are parents I know from the neighbourhood, acquaintances. I'm not seeing a lot of hugging or chatting there either, to be honest. I AM seeing a new crop of puppies though, or the latest batch of rescue dogs (greyhounds are IN IN IN).

September will come. School and writing will resume! I've just signed a new contract with Dundurn Press for my third book, The Gargoyle at the Gates, which will require editing and marketing input from me. My fourth book, The Strange Gift of Gwendolyn Golden, is now with the Acquisitions Editor at the publisher, and that may require a new contract and so forth. With the new month, I'm going to start working on new writing projects I have planned.

But for today, August 25 2011, I'm in that pre-September lull. Still, the teenagers will awake soon, and there are five pairs of shoes at the door."

PD

A few thoughts on signing my 12th book contract ...

Weird Stories Gone Wrong, 2012-2018+

Warning: this blog post is totally self-serving, but hey, it's my party. Today I signed my 12th book contract and dropped it in the mail! It hardly seems possible.

How did that happen, really ....

One spring day in 2007, Sylvia McConnell, the publisher of Napoleon Publishing, emailed to tell me about my manuscript submission. Thumbs up or down?

Her tone was apologetic, bemoaning the slow nature of publishing, and I was fully expecting yet another rejection letter (albeit a pleasant one by her tone). Imagine my surprise when half-way through the email, I read the line...

"However, we are still interested in publishing your manuscript, 'Gargoyle.' Please let us know if it is still available."

I read those two sentences over and over.  My brain didn't get it, did somersault sequences of "Wait. What?" Slowly, much too slowly, I got out of my chair and gasped, that full body-gasp where you throw your hand over your mouth, close your eyes, shake your head a little.

The Night Flyer's Handbook series, 2014-2016

Then I burst into tears. 

Tears streamed down my face, I tasted them, I let them roll before I rubbed them off my chin. How often do you get to wipe tears of joy off your face, really? Then I ran from the top of the house to the bottom (a long way, four stories and 38 stairs), jumping up and down, fist pumping all the way, like a 10-year-old, heart racing with shock and something like ethereal joy. Tears and snot rolled freely, and I shrieked for the cat since no one else was home. (I did realize how crazy I looked but cared not.)

The cat cared, however, and quite rightly took one look at me and ran away to hide.

It was quite a moment. There are really only a few moments like that in life, at least for me. How often do dreams come true, anyway? Other than marrying the love of your life, or holding your child for the first time, or possibly winning the lottery (that one is just a guess), hearing that a publisher wants to publish your first book is right up there. Top five, anyway. Thank you Sylvia, Allister and Emma, you'll always have a special place in my heart!

The Lost Gargoyle Series, covers by Emma Dolan

That first gargoyle book, The Gargoyle in My Yard, was published in 2009 followed quickly by book two, The Gargoyle Overhead (2010), and The Gargoyle at the Gates (2012). I was so honoured and immensely grateful each time Sylvia agreed to publish the next book.

Writing The Lost Gargoyle series was one of the greatest joys of my life. I learned so much about writing, so much about character development, so much about story-line and narrative sleight of hand. I loved my main character, Gargoth, a grumpy but lovable 400-year-old gargoyle who had lost his greatest friend. In fact, Gargoth looked over my shoulder all the way. He taught me that I could write. For how Gargoth came to me, read an earlier (and also totally self-serving) blog post: Birth of a Children's Author

Then the writing floodgates opened and between 2012 and 2017, I published five more books: The Strange Gift of Gwendolyn Golden and Jake and the Giant Hand in 2014, Myles and the Monster Outside in 2015, Carter and the Curious Maze and Everton Miles is Stranger than Me in 2016. Those books were all published by Dundurn Press, thanks for all the hard work and beautiful books guys!

Talented and smart people have helped me all the way: publishers like Sylvia and the good folks at Dundurn, editors like Allister Thompson, my editor through ten books now and counting, marketers, production experts, illustrators like Emma Dolan and Shawna Daigle, sales people, retailers, wholesalers, nominating committees, librarians, teachers, and kids too. Thanks to all of them. It's incredibly humbling to have so many people believe in me and in my books.

A cover by illustrator Shawna Daigle

Fast forward to today, November 29, 2017.

I have just dropped the contract for my 12th book in the mail.

I remember going to the OLA SuperConference in Toronto (a big library event) in 2009, and autographing my first book. A woman was watching me carefully, and when I'd finished, she came and introduced herself. She was children's author Marsha Skrypuch, and she asked me some great questions, and said welcome to the author world. When I asked her how many books she'd published, she said "Twelve. You'll get there, faster than you think."

How could anyone possibly write twelve books, I wondered?

I guess now I know. I've done it. And it happens fast, just as Marsha said it would. The secret, if there is one ... is just keep writing. Sorry it's not more interesting, but that's really all I can tell you. Keep listening to that inner 10-year-old, or manic creative voice, or hyperactive pen monkey, or whatever it is that inspired you to write in the first place, and trust it. Do it, despite the creative doubt, the loneliness, the dark thoughts that no one is going to ever read it, that it's trash, that you should just give up ... but you don't. 

Next year, 2018, is a year in which I publish three new books, which meant that 2017 was a year of intense writing! I wrote all winter and spring, and all summer too. In total, I wrote 110,000 words and hundreds of chapters. I wrote about an evil twin (Alex and The Other), a family of shipwrecked kids (Blackwells and the Briny Deep), and a destroyed world populated by children and robots (Oculum). I wrote into the night, slept little, wrote until my hands ached and my fingers seized up. I had to stop playing guitar for most of July, because I only had so much hand strength.

Author touring the neighourhood with
her first book, 2009

I went a little bonkers, to be honest. I dreamed about my characters. I woke up after a few hours of sleep, seeing words on the page, knowing exactly what had to be fixed. I grabbed my journal and scribbled down my fixes, or crept into my office at the back of the house, and typed. I only worked on one story at a time (some people can manage several manuscripts in the same day, I'm not one of them), but I'd switch back and forth between stories every few weeks.

I can't say I ever saw the dawn creep into the window of my office, but I came close a few times. It was the most intense writing I've ever done, with the possible exception of a term studying Moby Dick in grad school.

And here's the thing: I'll do it again. 

Author at 10

Every time I sign a contract, I'm still that 10-year-old running around the house, scaring the cat (except now it's a dog). I don't burst into tears anymore, though, which I guess means my heart has weathered a little, probably a good thing for everyone's nerves. At a reading recently, a boy asked me how many books I'm going to write in my life. I smiled. I've heard this question before, or something very like it. I looked up at the ceiling and said, "Twenty. I think that sounds like a good number."

Somehow, I'm already more than half-way there. My 10-year-old self has some writing to do ... 

The Secret to Being a Writer and 3 tips for the Seepe Walters Writing Contest ...

Watch the video to find out the SECRET TO BEING A WRITER ... (and 3 writing tips)

Kids in grades 3-12 in Innifil, Ontario, ENTER the SEEPE WALTERS WRITING CONTEST!
Contest closes October 30, so don't wait! You could win $100, and all finalists will be published in the annual Seepe Walters Anthology, plus I'll be a judge and I want to read your stories.

You're the next generation of Canadian storytellers, we need you... here's how to enter online now

More on the Seepe Walter Writing Contest on this blog.

When authors and editors write music together, Part 2

Birches in Summer, paper collage, by Baye Hunter

It's been two years since my first album release with my long-time editor and wonderful musician, Allister Thompson, but today is the release of album number two! I'm so honoured to share it with you.

Please enjoy Birches at Bandcamp
It's also available free here: Birches, FMA 

You'll find eight instrumental guitar pieces, in the style of Bruce Cockburn or Samuel Beam, inspired by the Canadian forest of Algonquin Park and the Haliburton Highlands.

Here's the title song: Birches 

There's a song for my sailing life, Outer Harbour, and the companion piece, Algonquin. I play both songs with Travis picking, a distinctive style I love. There are a few songs celebrating family life, including Sarah Tiptoes, written for my daughter. And there's even a tip of the hat to Lovecraft, Mountains of Madness, where Allister does some very scary stuff with his voice.

This release also includes my first vocal recording, Moonlight. I have to thank Allister for convincing me to record it, but it's a lovely song about sorrow which is also bound with love and joy. I wrote it for my sister-in-law, who had the most beautiful voice of all.

Many thanks also to Baye Hunter, another musical friend and a terrific artist, whose paper collage work, Birches in Summer, adorns the cover. You'll find more of Baye's collage and watercolour here: www.bayehunter.com

Our first release, Fifth Season (Nov/2015), has had over five thousand listens, and one song, Summer, was the Free Music Archive Song of the Day in May, 2016. Plus, many tunes have been adapted by various folks in artistic videos, you can see them on my Youtube channel (I love the one from the Netherlands the most, I think, it's the windmill).

It's always a joy to create music with my friends. Please enjoy Birches, with our gratitude.