The Fear of Bad Reviews

The closer I get to finishing Iridescent, the more nervous I get about publishing it. What if I’m not able to sell any copies of it? Or even worse, what if everyone hates it and I get flooded with bad reviews?

Bad reviews are a funny fear to have, because it’s likely that a writer will get one at some point in their career. And it shouldn’t be a surprise. We know that not everyone will love our works, even if we do wish that they could. So why is there a fear of them? Well, when you put so much time and effort into something, you want it to succeed. In a way, our characters and our stories are like our children. We created them, developed them, and watched them grow and change. The last thing we want is to see them torn to shreds.

The thing is, bad reviews really shouldn’t matter. One bad review isn’t the end of the world, and it’s extremely rare that a book is universally hated to the point where it only has negative reviews. There’s always someone who will enjoy your story.

I mean look at Twilight. Seriously, raise your hand if you’ve ever heard, thought, or said that Twilight isn’t a good novel.

Well, you’re not alone. On Amazon, Twilight has 1,774 critical reviews. The majority of said critical reviews are also one stars. That’s a lot of negativity, and frankly those critical reviews are probably more review than many of us will ever receive on one novel. And yet, overall, Twilight has a 4.6 out of 5 star rating on Amazon. Why? Because 5,984 people gave the novel a positive review and the majority of those were five stars.

Now Twilight is probably an extreme case, but it’s the book I’ve seen torn apart more than any other. The way some people act, you’d think that there wasn’t a soul on Earth who liked the series. And yet, as we all know, that simply isn’t true.

Writing a novel is hard. We put so much time and effort into them, and we want to see our stories succeed. And yet, it is so easy to get caught up in the what ifs. The thing is, we can’t just let the negatives overtake us, otherwise we’re going to take the fun out of something we love doing. We need to think positively too.

So yes, maybe someone will hate my story and yours, but there’s going to be someone who loves it too. 

If At First You Don't Succeed...

The other week I tried to make an iced coffee. Easy, right? Someone had told me that she had started making her own iced coffees and they sounded delicious so I had to give it a try. She said all she would do is pour some vanilla over her ice cubes, then pour her coffee on top of that, and to top it all off she would add in some chocolate syrup. Naturally, I thought with a recipe that simple there was no way I could mess it up.

Boy was I wrong.

Too much vanilla came out of the bottle, then my coffee hadn’t cooled down enough so it ended up melting my ice cubes. And no amount of chocolate syrup can rescue watered down coffee. Yuck!

It was a disaster, and if I’m being honest, I felt really bad about the fact that I couldn’t make an iced coffee. But it was something I could learn from. I know what went wrong and I know how I could improve it next time.

And really, the same thing could be said of writing. Let’s face it, we writers rarely get everything exactly right on our first try. If we did, all of our first drafts would be ready for publication the moment we finish them. Instead we find sentences, paragraphs, and even chapters that just don’t work the way we thought they would. So like many things in life, we go back and try to figure out what went wrong. And once we figure it out, we go back and tweak and rewrite until we get it the way we wanted it to be.

So if that chapter just isn’t going the way you wanted it to, don’t let it get you down. Instead, look at what’s going wrong and look at ways you can improve on it. Then give it another go!

After all, if at first you don’t succeed…

Try, try again.

Can I Do This?

I would like to be able to say that I am always 100% confident that I will be able to finish my novel, publish it, and that it will be at least somewhat successful.

Unfortunately, that would be a complete and utter lie. In reality, most of the time I’m honestly wondering if I’ll be able to do that at all. Will I actually be able to tell a good enough story that someone will be willing to publish it? If not, would I be able to self-publish it? I’m not great at using social media and talking to people, so if I did self-publish how could I even be remotely successful with it? What if everyone hates it?

I think it’s fairly safe to say that I’m plagued with way too many self-doubts when it comes to writing. And I’m probably not the only person out there who feels this way. Whenever I look at articles and blogs about publishing, so many mention that a writer’s first novel may never be published. Rejection is a huge part of the publication process. And that isn’t exactly the most encouraging thing to see when you’re working on your first novel. At times I start to wonder, am I just wasting my time? I saw that JK Rowling recently posted some of her rejection letters. Seeing that, there's that little voice screaming, "If JK Rowling was rejected, what chance do I have!?" 

The thing is, thinking like this doesn’t do any good. If I spend so much time worrying about failing, then I will fail. I’ll never accomplish anything if I don’t try. Maybe I will fail. But I’ll never know if I don’t try. This is my dream, and it’s not something I can give up on easily.

If I do fail, I can learn from my mistakes and give it another go. Because if there is one thing that I do know, it’s that I love writing. I love coming up with story ideas and the characters that inhabit them. And I am determined that this is something I want to do for the rest of my life. So I will try to prepare myself for the struggles I know will lie ahead, and to try to stay positive at the same time.

I’ll keep reading inspiring quotes of the day. That always seems to be a good pick me up! So can I do this? I'm sure gonna try!