Write in Spite

Hello, darklings! 

Been a bit. I’m alive! Just been having to do more self care than usual.

Not quite dead yet.

In the name of the new year and doing new things, I’ve been practicing with dictation. Now, dictating my work comes with challenges. I gotta gather my thoughts verbally, speak clearly, and be mindful of stating my punctuations. I am not a great orator! However, I’m getting better. 

In fact, currently verbalizing this blog post as I chop up veggies. Yes, I’ll have to go back in and edit, but it gets a big block of words in text so that I have all my thoughts vomited out for editing, and that’s something. With enough practice, who knows? 

So while I am in the kitchen handling a very sharp object, let’s talk about receiving unhelpful and cruel comments. 

I know mini riders (whoa, dictation, what?) many writers who are exceptionally talented. I rub virtual elbows with amazeball fanfic writers. I have the privilege to commune with authors of books that are blow-your-mind good. And those insanely good writers still get unpleasant comments on their work. 

It’s made some of those wonderful writers want to quit. For them, I wish I could duplicate my tough goblin skin and wrap it around them like a protective coat. I wish I could make them believe and understand that those comments are not true measurements of their talent. I wish I could make them believe and understand how damned good they are.

Do the good comments outweigh the bad? Oh yes, for certain! However, because human psychology is the scumbag that it is, we remember the bad things most. What hurts us is what sticks to our thoughts.

I could go into the psychology of why our brains do this wretched thing, how it’s a mechanism to assist with our survival and avoid hurtful things. But unfortunately, this predominance of bad memories doesn’t serve our overall survival the same in modern times. It definitely doesn’t serve our creative survival. 

Dear new writers and old writers still struggling with their demons: you must not let them stop you. You mustn’t. They’re full of it. You must learn the difference between what is good criticism and what is just criticism for bad criticism’s sake. If it allows you to grow in your craft, it is good. If it does nothing, it is always, always bad criticism. You should never take the latter to heart. 

And let’s be clear: Someone saying “I don’t like this” or “You’re a bad writer” or along similar veins is offering an opinion, not a critique. 

You’re always going to run into those, because you can be as awesome as cheesecake, and someone is going to dislike cheesecake, or, more commonly, they just hate everything and want all to know of their complaints because they are loathsomely unhappy people. Don’t get involved in their negative energy field.

Furthermore, anyone offering up criticism on your work after it’s done and published and is not a writer or professional critic are always in the bad critic category. These people are not out to help you. They’re out to stroke their own ego, and ego masturbation is a solo activity and not one you ever need (or want) to be involved in. 

Just leave them alone to their opinions and retching while you continue to be awesome and creative.

Because they’re not creators. 

Let me repeat that: Bad critics are not creators.

Seriously, if you go online and search for the stuff that these commenters are creating, you’ll find that they either have very, very little work or nothing at all. You needn’t ever take “advice”, opinions, or hate from someone who is not a professional. You already have (or should find) a group that you take your stuff to for beta reading and improvement help. Randos on the internet should never have the same access to your feelings and creative levels as the ones who are truly assisting you in bettering your craft. Always surround yourself with people who are rooting for your success, who are eager to read more, and give good advice on writing. Listen to them and experts. 

Do not hand over your creative keys to haters and trolls. Do not hand them power over your emotions and momentum. Do not feed them. They deserve to starve in your shadow. 

Now, I say that. I know it’s not easy, especially when you’re first starting out. So, I will give you a few things to consider.

So first off, when someone comments poorly on your work, you can either delete their diatribe, ignore their existence, or thank them. 

Personally, I most often do the third option. Even if it's bad, even if it's very troll. Whenever you thank them for reading, you are reminding them that despite the hate they are spewing, they read your work. They took time and effort to consume your product. Of all the thousands of things that they could've spent their time on, they chose to read your work and leave a remark on it, good or bad. They could have stopped reading at any time and moved on, but they didn’t.

So responding with a "thanks for reading" will remind them of the fact. AND it adds to your comment and hit numbers. 

There are many works that I will read because they have a lot of commentary or feedback on them. Now, sometimes that can be because there are controversial topics in the work that were not handled well. It could also mean it ticked off the kinds of people we are happy to tick off. (Yeah, if someone says they hated something for being gay or woke, I’ll be all that more eager to pick it up!) But most of the time, it means that the work is just really fascinating. It means that people were so impressed by the creation that they took time out of their day to write something in response. 

Secondly, this is going to show that you are not down on their level. 

I will go out of my way to read the work of a creator who is kind and considerate to their readers. The moment I hear that someone is a jerk or mean, I lose interest. I have way too much to pick from in the world to spend my time on someone who spreads malice. 

Thirdly, I laugh. 

Humor is the best armor. Many times when I get these comments, they're so far off the

mark. Sometimes they’re one-liners to tell me that my work sucked in some way. To which I look at their pitifully small sentence and then the paragraphs of compliments on the other side of the scale, and think, well, I’m sure you hoped that would affect my day, and I mentally picture patting them on the head. 

Sometimes they wanted the characters to do something else, or feel a certain way, or got hung up on an odd detail and went down a wild rabbit hole with it. Yeah, there’s no controlling that, and I’m not going on that ride with them. I did the creating. My characters don’t let me have a say in how they act most of the time. So when some rando online thinks I will try to rein them in to their specifications when I can’t wrangle them is vastly amusing to me. 

If they really need something so tailored to their needs and interests, they should probably pick up a pen themselves, but since I know that’s not going to happen, they can have my mirth instead.

Also when people complain about a work being a waste of time or obviously didn't read the labels/tags/blurb to know what it was about, I think, well, shoot, you need to hire yourself a consumer babysitter, because I in no way made you read my stuff. 

And that’s the kicker. It is the utmost pomposity that someone would select a work without misleading description on it and then get offended when it is what’s on the tin. We are not their book babysitters. 

You are never going to avoid people who enjoy being outraged for the sake of it. They’re out there, and they may be loud, but they are the few. 

To them I say, thank you for reading and commenting. And then I laugh and I hope with time and practice, dear corvids, you learn to laugh about it, too. 

Write hard, little crows. Write in spite. 

Working On: 

Got more done on the vampire rough draft that continues to bite and suck my soul. I’d complain if I wasn’t enjoying it so damned much. 

Research History This Week That May Have Put Me on a List (or confused whoever monitors me): 

• Gut stab wounds

• Bleed out times

• Pretty much EVERYTHING World War 1, from life in the trenches, to the introduction of sniping and gassing, to what soldiers ate and cooked on, how Americans and Brits got along, and what tech they had to work with or invent during.

• British and American slang in early 1900s. 

Writing Whoops: 

• “Parlay” and “parley” are two different words. 

• “Hackneyed” doesn’t mean what I thought. It’s not just dull; it’s also trite or clichéd. 

Things my AI bot has overheard: 

• “Do I need to muzzle you?”

• “Sometimes you just need a metal spatula to get the job done.”

• “Hudson, come here. C’mere.”

Beasties Update: 

My cat Shouki is of an age now where she is trying to become a bag of skin and bones. I have now moved her to soft food, which she enjoys immensely. However, this has caused a rising of green jelly monsters in the other cats. 

Send good thoughts that I survive the standoffs as I protect one elderly cat’s peaceful eating from a horde of thieves.

Watching, Reading, Playing: 

Finished up the the game Guardians of the Galaxy on the playstation. I thought it did a

good job of balancing some movie with comic stuff. The gameplay wasn’t bad, the plot came full circle, the team interactions were funny (Drax has the best lines), and while there were a lot of shenanigans and craziness, things tied together with sentimental moments and some heavy Oh shite moments. So, good game, even if I don’t play it again.