It’s been a long, long time since I simply blogged about something just for the sake of putting words to a feeling. But some things have happened, and I wanted to process them because they feel too big to simply sit with them.
I suppose this is something a lot of us have to deal with when what we do for a living is a creative pursuit consumed by others for their enjoyment. On a regular basis, we are an exposed, raw nerve, letting the world (or at least the part of the world that’s interested) in on our secrets. We pour them out in our fictional people, sometimes because it’s the only way we know how to get the whispers in our hearts and minds to stop.
In November, I published what is quite possibly the most personal novel I’ve ever written. I’ve been awed and touched by the response. Readers found many things which resonated with them, and even though sometimes writing and editing it left me in shreds, I’m glad I did it.
What I’m not glad of is the way a number of people have decided that my words, my characters, belong to them by virtue of having read it. I don’t mean plagiarism, though given the things happening to some of my colleagues, that’s always a worry in the back of my mind. No, I mean those who think they are entitled to speak for me about what I did or did not mean or should have meant or will mean one day in the future. Not a matter of readers’ interpretations—an outright telling me what I “know” about my own work.
The thing is, I’m fairly tough. You can ask my publisher (well, okay, no, don’t email her about this; it would be rude). My first novel had huge changes and large added sections. I never fought her on it because I knew she was right, and it made a better book. (I may or may not have slammed my head against my keyboard a few times, though.) Still, I didn’t get angry or cry or tell anyone how put upon I was.
Editing my second novel made me cry (once in public). There was the time my friend and colleague stayed on Facebook chat with me, talking me through a trigger because I didn’t know what was happening to me other than that I couldn’t stop crying and shaking. It wasn’t because of the edits my beta readers suggested; it was because it was intense and personal and soul-wrenching. In the end, I was a better person for having survived it.
Beta reader comments feel like good medicine, even when they’re negative. Bad reviews either spur me on to do better or make me cringe and laugh at how ridiculous they are. (I’ve lost track of how often I need to tell people I don’t write romance, for instance.) Sometimes, I go hard on myself because I compare my work to others and find it lacking. But that’s on me.
I love chatting with readers about what I’ve written. Even when there’s a situation or character they hate (I have a character in my upcoming novel who is not at all well-liked, and it will be very, very interesting when I write his story to see what happens). It’s fun to see how readers have processed something in a short story or novel.
The one thing, however, that is guaranteed to reduce me to a puddle is offering unsolicited advice about my work.
I think if I tried hard enough, I could come up with a reason for it. I grew up with a parent who had a near-obsessive need to “fix” things I did. There’s something awfully controlling about insisting you know better than the person who created something about what kind of product it should be. This is deeper than “you used a bad stereotype” or “your plot has big holes.” It’s more along the lines of suggesting fan fiction has the characters more “correct” than the original author or people sending copies of the film version to encourage the author to use them as “research” for their next project.
I’ve tried reminding myself that people mean well, and sometimes they get a little too enthusiastic about their enjoyment. But for whatever reason, it feels so personal, like a lack of faith in my ability to tell a good story. Like I need help to do it right. Like I might forget there’s a whole Internet out there full of books and articles and reams and reams of information from which I can draw. Like they possess some special, secret insight into my characters and situations which I don’t despite the fact that I created them.
It’s a lack of trust.
Not being believed is one of the few things that can cause me to go from calm and happy to panicking in under ten seconds. That tiny little lack of trust—that seed of “I know better than you” condescension—is enough to put me over the edge.
So I am asking gently that I be trusted to know my own work. I promise not to tell anyone else how to do their job properly, and I ask the same in return. Trust me to ask for help when I need it. Believe me when I say I know where to find the information I want. And above all, listen when I tell you I know my characters and situations intimately because they came from my heart. In exchange, I promise to keep working, keep trying, keep practicing my art so as to give you as a reader a better and more satisfying experience.
If you made it all the way through, thanks for reading! I’m still giving away FREE e-books, so check out my Amazon page and enter the giveaway for a shot at any of my work (except for multi-author anthologies).
