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Friday, August 9, 2013

The Mind of a Writer - Reviews

I believe that everyone who has ever taken ink/text to paper/screen, has at some point wished they became that overnight success that we sometimes hear about. This phenomena of success is like a lottery. The wins are regular enough that every one of us hopes that if we get 'in it', then perhaps we might just 'win it'. Unlike the lottery, where you sit at home watching the news only for the numbers, the anxiety of being a writer doesn't end when the final ball drops.

I have been dabbling in writing as long as I can remember - and I have a remarkably long memory. It started when my preschool teacher told me that the eight letter word I'd painstakingly learned to spell was nothing. I had known how to spell the moment I learned my ABCs. A whole world opened up for me then, and it's been playing with my nerves ever since.

You see, having started to write at such an early age, I have grown very familiar with the elation - almost a high - of burning the candle at both ends in order to create something people might enjoy. Sigh! Sometimes I tell people, every writer is just a little bit manic. Personally, the moment I say a work is complete, I go from this extreme excitement to an almost paralyzing horror at just the thought of actually putting my work out there. And when I finally brave the masses and allow others to see the world I spent the past two weeks or so in, another part of me spends the rest of my life sitting on the edge of something waiting to see if the work is enjoyed.

At first, I used to think there wasn't enough of me to keep this up. Since then, I've learnt that I am a self-healing creature. For every piece that is given away, a new one replaces it. However, the process would be much easier if I received feedback. Reviews are a writer's sustenance. It tells us what we are doing wrong. What we are doing right. If our readers like our style. And most importantly, reviews tell us if readers think the story we have to tell them is worth the grind that we put into it. Please have compassion when you purchase a book. Take the time to drop a note of either encouragement or criticism. Perhaps you might drop even a little of both. It goes a long way to soothing that part of us writers that sit on the edge biting our nails after we've poured our hearts out to the world.

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