Category: Writing Advice

Most artists don’t like negative feedback. Writers are no exception. We put our time, blood, sweat, and tears into our writing; it’s an extension of ourselves. This link intensifies when we conjure the courage to publish. Reading a “bad” review of our latest publication feels like a friend bashing us on Facebook. Maybe we’re overreacting to minor criticism or maybe the person who wrote it really is being a jerk. Some people have sticks up their butts and want to troll the world. That’s a sad fact of life. Still, not all “bad” reviews and negative feedback are meant to be mean. Despite what we might tell ourselves or vent to our loved ones, they may not be entirely baseless, either. Rather, these criticisms are just honest reviews.

As with negative feedback from alpha and beta readers, our knee-jerk reaction to honest reviews can be rash and disastrous. We may blame ourselves and our writing, start badmouthing our entire being, and threaten to give up. On the flip side, we may brush it off as people hating us, our writing style, the genre, whatever, and decide that the reviews aren’t worth our time or energy. While the second option protects our fragile egos and prevents an immediate shut-down of our careers, both could damage us as artists.

I’ve preached repeatedly that you shouldn’t give up when things seem bleak, and I’ll continue to do so in the future. What I want to discuss here is the value of pursuing honest reviews, rather than ignoring them.

All writers know that, in the workshop/editing phase, we must evaluate negative feedback rationally and decide which remarks are helpful. But what about after publication? What should we do about negative reviews? If they damage our marketability, how could they possibly help us?

Despite the potential hit to sales, receiving negative reviews are a blessing in disguise, so long as they are honest.

First of all, honest reviews may not impact book sales the way you would think, even if they are negative. Yes, a review which critiques the work may deter people from reading it. However, The Ramblings of a Madwoman pointed out that readers are also more likely to choose a book if the accompanying reviews are genuine. One- or two-line positive reviews seem suspicious. Did someone drop fluff in the feedback without reading the book? Did the writer’s family or friends post these reviews to boost the writer’s confidence? If readers doubt the authenticity of the review, they’ll question the quality of the book itself.

Beyond the sales perspective, honest reviews can show you where your writing can improve. If multiple reviewers point out spelling or grammar errors, you should consider more thorough proofreading. If people appear to be harping on one aspect of the book–character development, plot, setting–you can focus on developing your skills in that area.

In some cases, you can act on honest reviews by adjusting the piece they critique. The increasing presence of e-books, small publishing companies, and self-publishing allows for more frequent re-printings. Did the review mention spelling and grammar errors? You, your editor, and/or your publisher can make note of these errors and fix them in the e-book and other re-releases of the work. Are you receiving a lot of negative critiques of your self-published book? Perhaps it’s time for you to re-read it with a fresh eye and work on re-writes. That’s the miracle of self-publishing; if you prematurely put the book on sale, honest reviews can help you see the mistake and go back to the drawing board.

Most importantly, though, you can carry these lessons into your future endeavors. You don’t have to entirely change your writing style or topics to please critics. In fact, I strongly discourage such alterations. Instead, you can keep the honest reviews at the back of your mind as you edit and rewrite your next piece. So and so said the main character for your last book was flat, does your current protagonist have depth? Most reviews complained that your transitions were clunky, should you read the new scenes aloud to see how the transitions feel? Many readers found typos in your last self-published novel, have you truly fixed all the errors this time? Should you hire an outside editor? Multiple? Can you trust the editor you used last time, or do all these complaints suggest they dropped the ball?

“Bad” reviews are hard to receive, even when they are honest (or perhaps especially). As with negative critiques from workshops, we must take them with a grain of salt. We cannot let them ruin our self-confidence and deter us, but we can’t ignore them, either. They may contain a kernel of wisdom which would take our writing to the next level, if only we listen.

What are your thoughts on honest reviews? Would you prefer an honest “bad” review or a review that blows sunshine your way? Some “bad” reviews really are left by trolls and haters. How do you ween them out?

Leave your thoughts and stories in the comments below. You can also e-mail me at thewritersscrapbin@gmail.com, connect with the blog on Facebook, or follow me at @dragonet07 or @writersscrapbin on Twitter.

If you would like me to read and review your published work, look me up on Fiverr and we can arrange an order.

Let’s face it, writers tend to have obsessive personalities. I know I do. Harry Potter, Disney, Dragonriders of Pern role play, I can even become obsessed with school and freelance work. Perhaps that’s why writers are able to write; our brains simply won’t let the material go until we have completed the project to our satisfaction. Sometimes that means that we never let a project go, instead turning it into an entire series of books, stories, poems, or essays. That’s great. After all, that means we will never be wanting for material. But what about when we become obsessed with our work, to the point that we snap if we get interrupted? It makes me wonder: are writers workaholics?

Writers are rather contradictory by nature. We dread writing and yet we dread not writing even more. I’ve been busy with various freelance jobs recently and, as a result, I haven’t been able to focus my imaginative power enough to work on my own writing. It’s killing me. I’m riding a high from working on other projects but a part of me dies when I don’t write. I know that other writers feel the same way.

I suppose that people can easily become workaholics when they love what they do. As they say, those who do what they love will never work a day in their lives. Since writers simultaneously love and dread what they do, it’s no wonder they pick up workaholic traits. Add to that the obsessive behavior and you will no longer be mystified by writers who lock themselves away for days on end working on their latest novel or poetry collection.

So, we’re workaholics. All artists are. Is that a bad thing? Not always.

On the one hand, workaholic behavior can increase productivity. That’s a given. You work more and more work gets done. As long as we have something to focus on, we’re also happy. Frustrated, perhaps, especially when we have writer’s block or get interrupted, but happy nonetheless. Eventually, that increased productivity may also lead to more money if our work sells.

Increased productivity, happiness, and money, what could possibly go wrong?

Unfortunately, as with most workaholics, writers burn the candle at both ends. We push ourselves to our absolute limits, ignoring our other needs and the needs of those who rely on us. We may feel happy while we’re working but, in the long run, we risk destroying other aspects of our lives.

In life and in writing, we have to balance work and other needs/desires very carefully. If we don’t write at all, we die inside. If we let writing take over our lives entirely, we lose those relationships and experiences that enrich our art. When we finally achieve that balance, that is when we are truly happy and successful. More importantly, that is when our work becomes its best, infused with the passion of our minds and the richness of real life experiences.

Do you think writers are workaholics? Obsessive? How do you handle the work/life balance? Leave your thoughts in the comments or join the conversation on our Facebook page.

Happy Monday. Today I’m going to talk about dealing with writer envy, an issue I’ve struggled with time and time again.

The other day I received the August 2017 edition of The Writer. In it is an article by Ryan G. Van Cleave titled “Little Green Monsters: The 411 on Writer Envy”. Van Cleave gives a brief overview of his own experiences with envy, provides advice from four professional writers, and finishes with his own advice on “defeating the little green monster.” I suggest grabbing a copy and reading the entire article.

So, what is writer envy? It’s when we, as writers, see others succeed and feel bad because those other writers seem to be accomplishing more than we are.

If you were to tell me that, throughout your entire writing career, you’ve never felt writer envy, I’d likely huff at you. Even the most selfless, altruistic human is susceptible to greed and jealousy. And let’s face it, all markets–including the writing market–encourage competition which, in turn, cultivates a needless “dog-eat-dog world” mentality.

I know I’ve had this issue. It doesn’t make me mad at the other person and I don’t blame them for it. Rather, I start to wonder why I’m not successful like they are and if I’m not good enough to be a writer. I’ve gotten somewhat better about not having this reaction lately. However, I still have moments when I see that a writing friend has won a contest or been published and I feel a twinge and question my ability to succeed.

How do you stop this self-destructive attitude? Well, there’s no way to entirely eliminate it. Nevertheless, you can curb it, either by turning it into something productive or adjusting your thinking to have more positive reactions.

Van Cleave has his own advice for handling writer envy, which I think every writer should read. Here, though, I’m going to discuss my own ways of dealing with it:

1. Raise the bar for yourself. Instead of whining and moaning “why didn’t it happen to me”, make and meet your own goals. Do you have an edited manuscript in your drawer gathering dust? Start querying agents! Learned of a contest you want to enter? Get on it! Jealousy, to a certain point, can be a good motivator; you just have to make yourself use that motivation. You can’t expect an agent to randomly e-mail you saying “You didn’t query me but I’d love to represent your book.” (If you do, that’s a huge red flag for a scam.) The only way things are going to change is if you push yourself harder and do the work.
2. Channel the envy energy into something productive. Whether it’s writing-related or an expenditure of energy in another area of your life, I’m sure you can find some good use for the pent-up aggression and agitation. Write a new story. Edit your manuscript. Query a magazine or blog. Heck, you could even clean your house and it would still be a better use of this energy than stewing on someone “doing better” than you.
3. Remind yourself of your accomplishments. Van Cleave hints at this coping mechanism by suggesting that, if you feel the need to compare yourself to someone, you should compare your work now to your old work. I’m not going to lie, depending on the mood you’re in that may not be the best idea. I’ve depressed and embarrassed myself enough to know that you have to choose the right time to revisit old writing. You should, however, remind yourself of how much you have achieved. Won a contest a few years back? Had an article or short story published in a magazine? Finished a book-length manuscript during the last NaNoWriMo? All of those are great feats to achieve. You need to remind yourself of that and remember that you’re not in competition with anyone but yourself.
4. Think of another writer’s success as a sign that you can succeed. If you’re suffering from writer envy, you’re probably already thinking “I’m just as good and/or as experienced as they are, why haven’t I caught a break”. Flip that mindset. Instead of complaining that you haven’t gotten a break when you’re like this other writer, think about the fact that another writer like you has succeeded. Since they’ve succeeded, that means someone like you has the potential to make it in the writing market. In other words, this other writer’s success means that you can succeed, too, if you put in the effort.

5. 

   Remember that everyone grows at their own pace. Just because you seem to be “falling behind” doesn’t mean that you actually are. You remember in high school when you complained because you weren’t tall enough, weren’t strong enough, weren’t maturing quickly enough, whatever, and then your parents (or other trusted adult) told you not to worry about it because everyone grows at a different rate? The same is true for everything else in life, including writing. Progress is not the same from person to person. Everyone has to work and live at their own pace. As I said in #2, stop comparing yourself to everyone else. All that matters is that you’ve grown in comparison to your old self. Any other comparison will only depress you and/or drive you crazy.

I know this is all easier said than done. We’re taught from an early age that we have to be competitive or we won’t survive. It’ll take a lot of unlearning and conscious reconstruction of your thoughts to help you overcome the hurdle of writer envy. Don’t give up. You’ll feel a lot better about yourself when you get past it and you’ll be able to enjoy your fellow writers’ success, perhaps even helping them along the way.

Any thoughts on writer envy or how to get over it? Suggestions for future topics? Drop a line in the comments or e-mail me at thewritersscrapbin@gmail.com.

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Lately I’ve been struggling with writing an essay which should be easy for me. My guess is that it’s writer’s block due to pressure, stress, and high expectations. That’s a different conversation entirely. Earlier today I got one of the biggest mental breaks for the essay, one which could help put me back on track. You know where I was? In the shower. Nothing to write on nearby. I had to keep muttering my thoughts to myself so that I wouldn’t forget them by the time I reached my laptop. Needless to say, I was able to write down what I had already thought of but, for the most part, the muse was gone. Now, as I’m waiting for her to return, I’ve decided that I should talk a bit about inconvenient writing inspiration in the hopes that it’ll shake off some of the cobwebs.

My story is unfortunately common. A writer will be going along at something they can’t walk away from, such as showering or trying to sleep, and BAM! Here comes some inconvenient writing inspiration.

Today was not the first time I encountered inconvenient writing inspiration and I know it won’t be the last. It’s just how my mind operates. If I’m trying to focus on something that isn’t particularly interesting and/or I’m block from most external stimuli, my thoughts wander. By the end of my undergraduate years, most of my class notes were actually notes in the margins for new stories and essays for my various classes. (Somehow I still graduated summa cum laude.) Showering and sleeping are especially inconvenient for me since that’s when I usually have epiphanies about particularly difficult stories and essays.

So, how can we deal with such inconvenient writing inspiration?

The key to the answer is in the question itself: we deal with it. We can’t eradicate the problem entirely. That would involve changing how our brains work entirely and that could ruin our creativity. Frankly, we probably wouldn’t want to “solve” this problem. It’s inconvenient and annoying but, at the end of the day, writers need inconvenient writing inspiration. It helps us with writer’s block, especially when we’re getting more stuck the longer we stare at the blank page.

Dealing with inconvenient writing inspiration takes a little creativity, not to mention a better memory and overcoming laziness. The best way to deal with this sort of inspiration is to just keep things to write on wherever you go, no matter what you’re doing. Notebook or phone by your bed, whiteboard or notebook by the shower (be careful not to get it wet), a small notebook or tablet in your purse or backpack, and scraps of paper anywhere you can reach them will give you a chance at writing things down before you forget. The only problem is that you have to remember to write things down and not feel too tired or lazy to reach for your notebook. (Many writers are guilty of that, myself included.)

Short of notebooks everywhere, I can think of no real “solution” to this phenomenon. You just have to write the thoughts down as soon as you can and hope that background noise doesn’t drive the inspiration from your mind.

With those little not-so-shiny gems of wisdom dropped, I must return to waiting for my muse so that this essay may be written by the June 14th deadline. Perhaps if I start to do something else, I’ll get some inspiration again–so long as I have my phone or laptop nearby!

Have any advice for when inspiration creeps up at the most inconvenient times? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Writers aren’t the most organized people. Frankly, I’m lucky that stuff doesn’t fall on me in my bedroom every night. We’re especially bad at time management. After a certain point in our writing our minds start to wander. Even deadlines can’t help us all the time. It’s not because we aren’t passionate about our work or because we don’t want to write anymore. The reasons vary from writer to writer and situation to situation. Sometimes we’re too scared and subconsciously trying to self-sabotage, and sometimes we’re just distracted. Whatever the reason, time management typically isn’t a writer’s forte.

Is this lack of time management skills really a problem in our industry? What can we do to pull ourselves out of that trap?

Honestly, neither answer is simple.

For some writers a lack of time management skills can be a problem but for others it’s not. Some writers’ work will suffer if they don’t give themselves enough time. Others thrive under pressure. Still others are somewhere in between or move from one to the other depending on the project. I fall somewhere closer to the third category. While I often succeed best on a tight schedule for academic writing, my fiction writing can suffer greatly if I try to do anything at the last minute.

When deadlines are involved, it’s always best to start early enough to have wiggle room. Even last-minute writers can fall victim to writer’s block under too much pressure. That’s not to mention the array of technical issues which may arise solely because of Murphy’s law. Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. All we can do is be prepared, and starting early is one of the best ways to ensure that we’re prepared.

Other than preparing for the worst, I’m not sure if there’s anything else we can–or should–do if we have time management problems. As I said, different writers work best under different circumstances. If pressure helps you write, you may not want to change that. If it isn’t working for you, you should learn some time management skills.

If you’re looking to cultivate such skills, I’m not the best person to ask. Aside from keeping deadlines straight in my head and prioritizing what to do based on those, I don’t have any real “time management skills.” That may be one of the reasons why I’m stressed all the time (that and the fact that I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder). However, I always turn work in by or before the deadline, so my disorganized methods must work for me.

The key to time management in writing is finding whatever works for you. Your best (writer) friend may have to write down a detailed schedule of when she’ll write what, but you may do best just by going with the flow. She may set her own deadlines in addition to an editor’s deadlines and you might need to just keep your editor’s deadlines in mind. As with all organization matters, writing is organized chaos; only the individual writer can understand his/her methods because they were tailored especially for him/her.

Do you have any time management advice? Tales of woe or cautionary tales? Leave your thoughts in the comments. Also keep an eye out for more of my thoughts on writing and organization, and be sure to sign up for notifications straight to your inbox.