Bitter Seeds

Well, there you go.  I’ve given you some book reviews, and made sure all of the ones I’ve written here are on Amazon.  Strangely, the lower reviews don’t seem to show up.  I know that one won’t show because she’s certain I’m attacking her personally, but I can only speculate why the other doesn’t show up.  I’d like to say something to them, whether or not they actually read this…

 Sure, the truth hurts and that book you thought was amaizing actually fell short of the utter glory you imagined for it, at least as far as the public is concerned, but the head in the sand approach is just dumb.  Obviously if your book had done well it wouldn’t have ended up in a 99 cent store, or in a discount bin.  If you can’t get royalties on a work, perhaps it’s because the companies trying to sell them have had to do so at cost to break even.  I can sympathise that you wanted it to work out, who wouldn’t?  But there’s got to be a point where you can sit down and say “Okay, maybe I should have really read this all the way through.  Maybe I should have really examined this or that.  If I don’t truly believe the work, how can I expect my readers to?”

There’s a thing about creating something like a book.  Second guessing it actually helps it’s improvement.  You have to write and rewrite and rewrite and edit and rewrite and edit over and over, chopping and hacking untill you have something that sparkles!  Also, in some cases, less is most definitely more.  Don’t put all your ideas into one work.  Save some, use it later.

Now, I’m not published, and I’m sure that someone who is would look down their noses at my opinion because of it, but I am a consumer.  Readers know what they like, and it’s the readers that you rely on to buy your work.  If you have a low opinion of your public, it will show in your writing, just like my opinion of your work shows in my reviews.  Your writing voice is everything.  The best writing voices are the ones that are true to the author.  I’m not going to pepper my work with large words because I don’t feel the need to impress anyone.  I write because I have a story to tell, not because I have a vocabulary to show off.

I have to admit, the people who try to blatantly expose their vocabulary get up my craw.  It’s just one of those things that I just can’t stand.  If I think a writer has taken every other word that they can and applied a thesaurus to it I’m going to instantly dislike their work.  And no, it’s not a literacy envy.  There’s a blog I’ve subscribed to called Apriljournals http://apriljournals.com/2011/04/07/the-imperfect-fold/  The author is a twenty-something man and he happens to have an extensive vocabulary, but he uses it to better get across his point, not to one-up all the other bloggers.  I’m sure he’s not even aware of the words he’s writing most of the time.  Check him out if you have the time.

But you know, I’m done on this subject for now.  It really won’t matter anyways cause people will perceive all the ill of the world in my words, and ignore any of the very sound advice that’s there.  Bitter people will reap their own bitter seeds.