a big chicken, baby, stupid-head weenie
I don't know what's wrong with me lately. Maybe it's because I'm on sabbatical and trying to get away from the worries of being a professional writer. Maybe my guts diminish each year, like melting ice, or evaporating kool-ade that leaves just that dry skin of red sitting there like a circus ring at the bottom of the cup.
I can't log on and read my Amazon reviews anymore. I don't want anything to do with reviews in magazines. In fact, I think I've become allergic to critics-armchair and otherwise. And it doesn't matter if it's good stuff or bad. I just don't want anything to do with any of it. I've written on this here before. But it's getting worse. Am I just being a big chicken? Or do I need to remove myself from such influence to create in a more pristine fashion?
I'm hoping it's the latter. If you've got pros and cons of both, I'd love to hear them.
grace,
lisa
posted by lisa @ 10:20 AM
2 Comments:
lisa, i think it's wise. there is not criteria to being a critic anymore. any fool can criticise. there are people who make fake-careers at amazon by trashing other people real careers. i think it's just plain wrong.
most of the positive reviews have been found to be the authors themselves or shills for them, while the negative ones are the same people bashing their opposition and trying to 'guide' people to their own books.
i think the only people who should really be able to be critics are people who have earned that right, or have written or prouduced something themselves.
it's a nasty world out there, and i highly recommend you protecting yourself from it! steals your serenity, and nothing is worth that. and you are NOT a big chicken, baby, stupid-head weenie!
Lisa,
I just returned from a writer's conference where I won your book, "Intuition." I read it yesterday as I came down off the conference. Now, after reading beautiful writing like that a person could really start to doubt herself. :o)
At the conference my passion and dreams seemed possible. I turned to my wonderful four children and dear husband and home schooling . . . and cooking . . . and laundry . . . and a pile of other stuff. It all crashed upon this tired writer momma like a tidal wave. I could doubt my calling to write.
And I'm tempted to doubt LOTS of things today.
But I don't doubt Christ. I don't doubt this passion He placed in my heart. I don't doubt that He can do through me whatever He wants to.
And so, this isn't about me . . . or you, really. It isn't about critiques or sales or anything else. The question is: did God put the passion in you to write? Of course. Do you believe He can write through you? You bet!
What are comments on Amazon compared to that??
BTW, Francine Rivers was keynote speaker and she told us she protects herself from numbers and promotions and anything that distracts her from the ability to just focus on God and what He wants her to write.
So--I'm hanging onto the truth that God is in me and can do this through me. . . and I'm determining not to let self-doubt cloud the truth down deep in my heart--that God gave me this passion to write and will direct its path.
Sending a prayer your way.
Oh, and Michele, I didn't think your book, Homeschooling Trail, was negative at all. I thought it was refreshingly real and positive!
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