Deaf to criticism

 

One thing I have noticed about authors who receive too much praise is it fails to thicken their skin against the odd criticism. I don't mind the odd sassy comeback, George RR Martin's king at these. Some people deal with twitter much better than others. But the authors who fail to listen to genuine constructive criticism do worry me. When you have a megaphone with all your fans singing your praises into it, somehow you either drown out or dismiss the naysayers, even if their opinion is valid.

I've been digging and scrounging for any kind of feedback since I began. I'm waiting for any poor critique of my new book so I can say with good grace to this person, thank you for finally telling me. Otherwise I'll never learn. You won't find me on Facebook or Amazon ranting at my detractors. I'll do what I can to ignore whatever isn't constructive, but if you have something of note to point out, where you think I've done wrong, I'll be very grateful for this and I'll say as much. And it won't be disingenuous, I am grateful, I can usual take the sting off any negative feedback now because that's what my degree prepared me for. When your work is going under the scrutiny of published authors at a university level, to have them really give a full opinion, and even a grade much lower than you were hoping for, it will be invaluable one day. When the chagrin wears off and your young ego has matured, you'll keep these words and hold them much dearer than any kindness given. Trust me, I'll have critiqued my work in my head long before a reviewer has a chance to, so I've already passed numerous judgements on it. It's good to do that. Never assume it'll all be roses.

I feel sad for authors who refuse to listen to their detractors. Ultimately, they'll never learn. And some of their readers might one day look back at their books and wonder what they loved about them.

Plus, there has to come a point where gloating over your success after multiple rejections gets stale. If you're still doing this 20 years later, you need to move on.