Here be monsters
Oh dear, it's got dusty here again already. Doesn't take long does it? There are a couple of reasons for this. One is that I am elbow deep in an audio book project at the moment, which has to be completed by the 25th of June. The other is that I am struggling.
What with? Oh, just the writerly life, s'all. Well, this little bit of swamp I'm crossing at the moment at least. No doubt in a few weeks all will be well again, once this sticky mud and all these damn mosquitos are fading in my memory and I am in love with writing again.
The swamps of pre-launch
As some of you know (most of you probably) my debut novel 20 Years Later is due to be released in hardback in a matter of weeks. Reviews are coming in, thanks to the Herculean effort of my publisher, and I have to confess, I hate this bit. Why? Because reviews are one of the single most awful things I have ever experienced in my writing life.
That bad eh?
Well, no, I haven't yet (to my knowledge – and I want it to stay that way!) had an appalling review. Most have been very good or even excellent. But there have been a small number that have been kind of middling, with a few throwaway comments that have felt like a knife in my stomach.
This is why I never write reviews for any book I haven't loved. The closest I have got to that is giving 1 out of 5 to The Time Traveller's Wife on Goodreads, and only because I figured that Ms Niffenegger wouldn't notice amongst the other 250,000 ratings or so, and was probably rich and happy enough not to care anymore. Even then I didn't go into detail about why I didn't like the book and couldn't even finish it, because I know how it feels to have spent years creating something, only to have someone say something awful about it in two minutes flat.
Wait a minute Em, aren't you breaking a rule here?
Oh yes, the rule that authors should never say anything about reviews. Well, I stand by the cast iron one that an author should never, ever respond to a hurtful review in situ, that is bad form. But I reserve the right to talk about how I feel right now on my own site. And this is blocking me at the moment, so I need to write my way through this. I'm not naming names, or even singling out the odd comments that have made me want to throw up with frustration and hurt, even though I might be burning to respond. I just feel this needs an entry in the Writer's Rutter, as this is a place that all authors come across in their travels, and I was not prepared for how hard this would be.
Whining
You know, I hate myself as I write this post. Oh for God's sake Emma, I hear my internal Evil Matron say (you've got one of those too, right?), get a grip! You got a publisher, you are on the road, you are so much further along than you've ever been, and it's impossible to write a book that everyone in the world will love!
I know that. Intellectually. And I know it's all subjective and I know I shouldn't read any reviews – good or bad – as they are only opinions and will screw me up but it's hard!
It's not just this that's going on though. It's the fact that I'm having to put myself out there more than I ever have before. I got some great experience launching From Dark Places and learnt invaluable lessons, but short story anthologies are a niche product, whereas YA novels have a much wider appeal, so it's ramping up a notch. I am being filmed this Saturday at The Liminal event in Weston-Super-Mare, giving a presentation at Frome Festival and reading at the Bristol ShortStoryVille event, and I find all of this agonisingly hard.
My confidence is at zero. Hell, it rarely gets much higher than 1.5.
I lay in bed last night and wondered if I really do have what it takes to live the life I've been striving for over the last 5 – no 6 – years. These days, authors can't just lock themselves away and write (unless you are China Mieville who told me that he blocks off time for promotion and then time for just writing). I'm right at the beginning of the more public part of my career and floundering already.
Now I'm wondering whether I should post this at all. Well, maybe it's good for others to know what this really feels like. I prepared myself for all the hard work, I prepared myself as best I could intellectually for bad reviews (heaven knows how I'll cope when I get a really bad one) but nothing has readied me for the gut-wrenching, soul twisting agony that is self-promotion and having someone pop your balloon before you've even left the fair.
Look, I can't leave this post like this. I'm a fairly optimistic person, and I'll bounce back. How about I tell you about the shiny new audio book I recorded for Iambik Audiobooks called Fall From Earth by Matthew Johnson. It's a great story and I loved recording it.
I should also mention that it's pretty cathartic to go to read reviews of books that you love, I mean really, really love, and see what the one-star reviewers have said. The day I get my first one-star review (or even 2 out of 5) is not one I'm looking forward too though. It will happen, as I said, it's impossible to avoid. I just hope I'm writing again by then, and that there is an extraordinarily large cup of tea to hand. And chocolate. Please God let there be chocolate.
