Thursday, November 5, 2009

Frequently Asked Question #2

Frequently Asked Question #2

“Do you like reviews?”

Short answer: yes.

Long answer: yes, I do. It always makes me sad, though, when people say that they don’t review often because they just want to say ‘good job’ or something. To break it down, what a review means to me is that someone—anyone—read and enjoyed what I wrote. I don’t get paid for writing and posting these stories. I don’t want to. The only thing I ‘get’ is reviews. A published author knows from book sales and royalties how many people are reading their stories, and in a broad sense, buying a book is akin to saying that you enjoy the author’s work. To me, a review is a way of ‘thanking’ me for the hours I stressed out over one single word that just wasn’t right to convey the emotion I’m trying to create. They encourage me when I feel like I’m tossing these chapters out there and no one notices. I know, that sounds silly. It’s very true, and not just for me, but for everyone who gets the courage to post online.

Let’s face it: some people are a nasty lot. I mean that they want to be nasty and they actively search for ways to make themselves feel better for whatever reason by being nasty. There are people out there who would just as soon tear you down than leave you alone. I have never quite understood this, and frankly, I have more important things to worry about than some crackpot who has nothing better to do than to troll the internet, looking for things to hate. I actually feel sorry for people like that. I mean, why not look for something positive than to gripe about something negative? I know that I tend to exhaust myself if I try to carry around any kind of negativity. I can only imagine how weary their souls have to be, and in that sense, I pity them.

It’s a funny thing to me. I can’t count the number of times that a review has made my day just a little brighter, and it doesn’t have to be a long one, either. There are days when I truly just want to toss everything into a corner and forget that I ever posted a single word online. Then someone takes the time to review, just to say that they enjoyed a story or a chapter, and I remember again. I keep posting because of people like that. That’s why they’re important to me.

posted by Sueric at 5:47 am  

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Leave a comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Powered by WordPress