Constructive, or Just Plain Criticism?

To those of you who have been following the story, it is time to shift gears. I will not be posting any more chapters from the book on this blog. From this point, I will update you on progress and discuss the writing process until completion of the project. I am aiming for release in April or May. Thank you to all of you who have followed along until this point.

A very wise person once told me "all of us scribblers are a bit odd." This bit of astuteness came at a point when I seriously doubted my writing, and pondering if the entire year spent on Cooking Athanasia was simply a waste of time. At the beginning, I felt it was a story worth telling and continually reassured by family that I was on the right track. Of course, I thought, family is supposed to say things like that. I looked for body language after anyone offered support, trying to determine they were really hiding the ugly truth. What has been even more amazing to me, is readers of my blog have (and I thank each and every one of you), for the most part, given favorable feedback.

            When I started posting chapters on this blog, I thought the rules were clear that it was a work in progress and final edits were planned for sometime in the future. However, there was a person on one of the social media sites, which I frequent, who single handedly nearly derailed my confidence and the project. As a newby, I am self-conscious about my work and have doubts that I am writing this correctly or not describing that enough, and I am open to constructive criticism.

The unsolicited review of my work, by this individual had valid points, which I included in a subsequent edit. My problem with the review was how the message was phrased. Without getting too deep in the weeds, the person essentially compared my work to a high school composition. When this individual presented his opinion, the internal editor and I were already engaged in mortal combat and he was not happy, thus verbally abusive with me about the story. As such, receiving criticism wrapped in negativity created a perfect storm and I almost gave up. If it was not for the kindness of a stranger who picked me up out of the emotional gutter, I may have scrapped the whole project. Since then, others have provided ideas of how to make improvements, but they did so without judgment and as peers, which I readily accepted.

The bottom line is that how one says something is at least as important as what is said. In addition, just to allay any concerns, the individual whom I speak of is not in any of my circles. On a completely separate note, I leave you with a spoiler alert; Anna did not die in the accident, she was merely in a coma (I found that out during an edit of the prologue).

Thanks for reading!

~K