On: Difficult Reviews and Staying the Course

Picture it: you’ve poured your heart and soul and many years into a work that is arguably a bit off key (but deliberately and in a good sense) and as life sometimes must do, it’s time for the critics to come a calling with their feedback.

Gulp!

My little book project received a pretty nice review from one legacy book reviewer while another, well, they pretty much eviscerated it. The only criticism missing was that I couldn’t write my way out of a paper bag, but I’m guessing said reviewer is a cliche avoider. So eviscerated was my work by this outfit that my awesome publicist sent a separate note to me offering to talk about it if I needed to. I didn’t.

Here’s the thing—In journalism, you set yourself up for all sorts of red ink and criticism the minute you hit “send” on your work and it lands in your editor’s inbox. As I scanned the harsh review, a couple of things stood out to me, one of which being that I’ve actually been down this road before. I’ve spent two decades in this business and been on the receiving end of plenty of feedback. Some good and constructive. Some cryptic and unhelpful at best. In the case of the review, I realized I’m hearing from the ghosts of red ink past.

It’s the editor that didn’t “get” me. The editor who thought my work was “too chatty” for their tastes. The editor who suggested I rethink my career choices. Etc. Etc. Rinse. Repeat. Basically, dear reader, it’s the eyeballs that I bless and refer to as “not my audience.”

And that feels ok and it feels good.

Not everyone is going to like this thing or think it’s any good. I expect plenty of people will have their very vocal, negative thoughts about it. This also feels ok and it feels good because everyone is entitled to their opinion. Should I have everything figured out with a first book? I don’t know. What I do know is that when I sat down to write it, I wanted to create something that was totes hundo nonfiction yet read more like a beach read and still tackled the topics of feminism, finance, history & justice. I wanted to target people who don’t think these subjects apply to them or that authors in these genres overlook them. I took creative risks I stand by.

This, too, feels ok and it feels good.

Because when you’re no longer afraid of what someone might think or say, you’re then free to take the creative risks you want to take and bold enough to stand by them.

And guess what, dear reader? I surely do.

Xo,

-G