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| Carre Armstrong Gardner |
One of the scary things about putting your
writing out there for the world to see is that it’s out there for the world to
see … and judge. It can be difficult and sometimes hurtful to open ourselves up
for criticism. How do we handle it? Carre
Armstrong Gardner shares advice and encouragement on this topic. Enjoy! ~
Dawn
Why I Don’t Read My Reviews
by
Carre Armstrong Gardner
Ernest Hemingway famously said, "There is nothing to
writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed." Surely Hemingway was talking only about the
daily, private act of writing. The bigger act of having published a book that
loved ones and strangers are actually holding in their hands isn’t so much like
sitting at a typewriter and bleeding. It’s more like laying yourself across a
butcher block, plunging a knife into your guts, and inviting everyone to come
and have an opinion about your blood.
My first novel had been released about 2 weeks when I
realized it wasn’t a good idea for me to read the reviews it was getting. In
one morning, I might read 5 great reviews and a single cutting one, but guess
which one stayed with me all day? Which hung around at my heels, tugging
insistently at my shirttail like some morose, runny-nosed kid, until I was
driven, sniveling, into the pantry, where I crouched in a corner and
ate spoonfuls of Nutella straight from the jar?
For most of us criticism has a way of ringing truer than
praise. I think this is an unfortunate outcome of having been taught that
polite people don’t toot their own horns. Which of us doesn’t secretly dislike
a braggart? Somehow, it seems okay to think meanly of ourselves, but it’s a bit
over-the-top to think we’re really great at something.Yet isn’t the habit of
self-deprecation kind of like saying that you’re one of God’s “factory
seconds?” That the gifts He’s given you are only second-rate ones? I mean…is it
even possible for God to turn out “factory seconds?”Still, most of us (myself
included) are not very accomplished at embracing, with confidence, our
God-given awesomeness.
Meanwhile, it turns out the praise and the criticism I’m
getting for my book amount to exactly the same thing: that All Right Here is not what readers expect in a “Christian” novel.
Whether or not that’s a good thing depends on who’s reading it. In writing as
in anything, trying to please everyone is the surest route to pleasing no one
at all.
What I’m learning through my agony on the butcher block is
this: if you’re going to survive to
write another day, you have to learn the art of bleeding without thought for
the onlookers. This is not just good advice for writing. It’s good advice for
life. Bleed freely and merrily and warmly, and with everything you have. One
thing nobody can argue with is your authentic story: tell it. It is your blood:
bleed it. In the end, that’s all you can do.
Tweetables:
Writing is like
laying yourself across a butcher block, plunging a knife into your guts, and
inviting everyone to come and have an opinion about your blood. Click to tweet.
Isn’t the habit of self-deprecation kind of
like saying that you’re one of God’s “factory seconds?” Click to tweet.
Most of us are
not very accomplished at embracing, with confidence, our God-given awesomeness.
Click to tweet.
In writing as in
anything, trying to please everyone is the surest route to pleasing no one at
all. Click to tweet.
Ivy
Darling can’t have children of her own, and her husband Nick’s resentment is
forcing them apart. And while Ivy has the support and love of her large,
close-knit family, Nick’s family has never welcomed her into theirs. When the
three children next door are abandoned by their mother, Ivy and Nick take them
in for the night. One night becomes several, and suddenly Ivy and Nick find
themselves foster parents to the only African-American kids in the town of
Copper Cove, Maine. As Ivy grows more attached to the children, Nick refuses to
accept their eclectic household as a permanent family. Just as Ivy begins to
question whether or not she wants to save her emotionally barren marriage, Nick
begins to discover how much Ivy and the children mean to him. But is his change
of heart too little, too late?
Carre Armstrong
Gardner writes from the big small town of Portland, ME, where she's the mom
of 3 teenagers and 2 rescue dogs she wishes she didn't own. (Only the dogs, not
the teenagers.) When she's not writing, she works as a Registered Nurse at a
local hospital.
To learn more and connect with Carre visit:
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