Well, I got a really horrible review this week. Really horrible and from Publisher's Weekly no less. Once I started breathing again, I did what I usually do in the face of criticism. First, I sent messages out to the world telling everyone that I got a bad review. Advertising is advertising. At the very least I figured I would get sympathy. At best I might get some more votes. Then I picked over the review for points. A bad review can be more helpful than a good review as far as improving your craft. If you spend all your time being wounded, you'll never learn anything. While I was looking for points, I also tried to put the review in perspective. I recently read a review of a movie that I loved, but the reviewer hated. It seemed to me that the review had made up his mind about the film before he hit play. I feel the same thing happened to my entry. Publisher's Weekly accused me of having a trite plot and vanilla characters. I was wrote a category romance so, yes, the story is going to follow a predictable arc. And the characters are a little vanilla too. It's something I'm working on. Then I reaped the benefits of my first step where all my pals sent condolences and defended me, which actually helps with the perspective thing.
When I took riding lessons, I was told you need to fall off seven times before you can consider yourself a real rider. I wonder how many bad reviews you have to get before you can consider yourself a real writer.
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