Preparing for the Harshest Critiques of All

So, what could be worse than a critique from a contest judge or other reader who trashes your manuscript and makes you consider tossing the whole thing in the Microsoft Windows Recycle Bin? A review of your published book, of course!

How could that possibly be worse, you ask? After all, if it's published, that means someone somewhere loved it enough to take a chance on it in the first place. Isn't the fact that you got published validation enough for you? What more proof do you need?

Well, here's why I think it could be worse: it's too late to fix it! At least with a critique from a judge or beta reader, you have an opportunity to correct whatever she found wrong with your story (assuming you don't decide her advice is all wet, of course). But if you get a poor review of your published book and think, "Hey, Mrs. LaughAMinute has a point: my heroine really is too stupid to live and there's a plot hole the size of the Grand Canyon in the first chapter," there's nothing you can do it about it. The thing's already printed and done; there's no going back.

Much as every unpublished author wants to make that leap to being published, to being read, that milestone brings with it a different kind of vulnerability. Before you get published, you worry about whether you're good enough to get published. After you get published, you worry whether you're good enough to stay that way. Is my work really worth $4.50 (or whatever the cover price is) for people to read? Will they feel they got their money's worth or cheated? Will they love me or hate me?

Writing is very personal (or is it for me, at any rate). While my characters and stories aren't about me or my life, they are very much mine. They come from my head and my heart and I'm invested in them. In some fundamental sense, if you don't like my book, maybe it means you don't like me.

Now, I realize that this is rationally untrue! Even if you buy my book and decide it's a complete wallbanger and a rip-off, you probably won't come and toilet paper my house for revenge. (I'm not telling you where I live, anyway, so even if you were considering it...) You might not even hold it against me when my next book comes out. Maybe you'll think the crummy book of mine you read was a fluke and I'm really not as a bad as all that. Even authors whose books I typically love are capable of producing books I don't particularly like, so I'm certainly a firm believer in not assuming a writer is a hack based on one bad book. And even the divine La Nora has a book that's panned now and then, right?

Still, I've been mulling my fear of reviews since about a week after I sold my Jackie Barbosa-branded erotic novella, Carnally Ever After, to Cobblestone Press. For the first week or so, I walked on air. Then, reality hit me! People are going to be reading my story. People I don't know. People I haven't conversed with in email or sat around a table drinking with at the RWA National conference or otherwise interacted with. And now that I have release date, August 17 (yes, just ten short days from now!), I'm doing my best to prepare myself for the inevitable moment when someone says, "Your story sucks."

Now, since I know the Mavens will give me a dope slap if I don't point this out, there is an excerpt from Carnally Ever After in this month's Cobblestone Quarterly newsletter. I didn't know Deanna was going to put it in there until after she'd done so and after Emma Petersen (a fellow Cobblestone author but apparently not a plant, LOL) launched a thread on the Romance Divas Forum gushing over how much she loved it and couldn't wait for the release. This was followed by several more very kind comments by other people (most of whom I've never met) who read the excerpt and liked it, too.

Needless to say, I basked in the glow like the complete hedonist that I am, doing my best Sally Fields imitation ("You like me, you really like me!"). It felt wonderful.

But I still worry about how I'll react to people who don't like it. Mostly because if they don't, there's nothing I can do about it. I'm an inveterate fixer. If something's wrong, I want to make it better. It's just my nature. But Carnally Ever After is already as good as it's ever going to be. It's done now and there's no going back. (And I truly never thought those words would be as terrifying as they actually are!)

If you want to be published, if you want to be read, you have to make the leap of faith and show your stuff to everyone and anyone who wants to look. It's exhilarating and a little scary. As I said on my own blog the other day, it's a bit like getting naked with a guy you really, really like for the first time. It could have a fantastic payoff, but it could also be devastating. (I wasn't going to repeat that particular analogy, but Leigh said she liked it and it does seem very apt.)



That said, I think it's worth the risk! (And I'll let you know for sure in about, oh, three weeks.)

YOUR TURN: If your work has been published, how did you react to poor reviews when you got them? If you haven't been published yet, have you thought at all about what it will be like, both good and bad?

P.S. Posting extra early because I have a fever and I'm going to bed!