SamScribble
Yeah, still just a guru
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2009
- Posts
- 38,862
This morning I received three bits of feedback on stories I have posted here on Lit. They were all pretty positive. But even better than that: they were all well written.
Before my first book came out, a fellow writer offered me some advice. ‘Don’t read the reviews; just focus on the royalty cheques.’ (Actually, as it turned out, both the reviews and the royalty cheques were more than acceptable.)
What my fellow writer hadn’t prepared me for was the ‘fan’ mail. For a while there, almost every day brought fresh expressions of praise or damnation. Happily, the expressions of praise far outweighed the expressions of damnation. But it was the negative comments that most played upon my mind.
Then, late one afternoon, I decided that before slitting my wrists I would just sit down and read through all of the comments – the good and the bad – in one go. I poured myself a large glass of red wine; returned the beautifully-honed Herder & Sohn chef’s knife to the drawer in the kitchen; and started reading. An hour or so later, the missives were in two piles.
In one pile were all of the ‘nice’ comments, together with a small number of slightly more critical comments that were, nevertheless, well written. In the second – much smaller – pile were the ‘mean’ comments. With just one exception, the ‘mean’ comments were all poorly written.
Most of the comments I get about stories I have posted here on Lit are pretty positive. But every now and then I get a really negative comment. And, so far, every one of those negative comments has been really poorly written.
Just a coincidence?
Before my first book came out, a fellow writer offered me some advice. ‘Don’t read the reviews; just focus on the royalty cheques.’ (Actually, as it turned out, both the reviews and the royalty cheques were more than acceptable.)
What my fellow writer hadn’t prepared me for was the ‘fan’ mail. For a while there, almost every day brought fresh expressions of praise or damnation. Happily, the expressions of praise far outweighed the expressions of damnation. But it was the negative comments that most played upon my mind.
Then, late one afternoon, I decided that before slitting my wrists I would just sit down and read through all of the comments – the good and the bad – in one go. I poured myself a large glass of red wine; returned the beautifully-honed Herder & Sohn chef’s knife to the drawer in the kitchen; and started reading. An hour or so later, the missives were in two piles.
In one pile were all of the ‘nice’ comments, together with a small number of slightly more critical comments that were, nevertheless, well written. In the second – much smaller – pile were the ‘mean’ comments. With just one exception, the ‘mean’ comments were all poorly written.
Most of the comments I get about stories I have posted here on Lit are pretty positive. But every now and then I get a really negative comment. And, so far, every one of those negative comments has been really poorly written.
Just a coincidence?
