The only thing that I fear more than writer’s block is reviews. Also tried the author leaves the country, the closing of all the avenues of communication and live in wordless horror before the reviewer’s judgment. Or – even worse – lost reviews. A harmonious human being would perhaps say that it is just a book and that it is not the whole world.
Harmonious people rarely get fiction author.
my reviews, looking for every nuance that may involve criticism, clasps me firm on the negative, I think I see and feel ashamed then thoroughly that I, in my arrogance thought me to be worthy of to waste the readers ‘ time.
For the moment I find myself out of the reach of the critics, because I am between novels. Therefore, I take this opportunity to think about this now, maybe I will be able to figure out a reasonable approach when my thoughts are not likely to capsize of the pitiful bitterness or unbearable self-righteousness that follows on the reviews.
In the best of worlds, I had, of course, been secure in the creation of my novel, submitted it to the reviewers with the inner conviction that a writer best knows his work.
met a writer who doesn’t care about the reviews. I’ve met numerous authors who say they don’t care about the reviews, but it has proven to not be completely truthful, because they are, when they have received good reviews, not only seems to have read the reviews, but also attached these positive reviews immense importance.
There is an inherent tragedy in the author’s love-hate relationship to reviews. We believe that a good review should make us happy. And we forget that the whole reason we became writers is that we do not find us grips in the world, but rather devote countless of hours to live in a fantasy world where we can decide everything.
Some fiction writers I know are – despite good reviews – disappointed that they don’t sell as much. Some crime writers I know are disappointed that they are not reviewed, even if they are selling very well.
once upon A time I hid myself behind the formulations, which all reviewers are idiots
not to go in the defence against the reviewer, either private by a rancorous e-mail, or through an attack in public. I have never done. Or, more correctly, I have not pressed the ‘send’ button.
Confession: I have reviewed the books. It is a employment for a writer that means complications since I now know a number of writers in the Swedish public sphere, and are likely to hit increasingly. Few things are as uncomfortable as having to run to an author, whose blood, sweat and tears you fail, even if you thought it was for good reason.
One thing I’ve learned over the years when I was the editor, or come with comments on the texts. It is, as the reviewer does not write phrases such as ”this should a good editor have deleted the” or ”A good editor should come up with objections”.
that the books that deserve the kind of epithet has been the subject of an intense redaktörsarbete by one or several editors, but that the author suffered from that feeling that I get sometimes, namely that each word already is weighted on the guldvåg. The kind of changes that the editor proposes, would be an attack, not only on the very long and cumbersome cursive the party in the novel. No, it would be even a dolkstöt in the actual literature, the pulsating heart.
once upon A time I hid myself behind the formulations, which all reviewers are idiots. It was before I started reviewing books.
And then I’m sitting a few metres away from some of the DN’s reviewers I know that they are ambitious people who do what they can to give each work the time and space it deserves. (I’m writing this not because I hope that my next book will get good reviews by his colleagues. The tradition invites wise enough to reviews of their own employees ‘ books made by someone who works somewhere else.)
comfort for the author that is hit by the hardest kind of review, a so-called sawing. Sågningar are often more widely read than the tributes.
There is also, since 2014, a new low, worse than a cutting from a reputed reviewer. It should all authors thank the Paul Frigyes. When he had written a – as it seemed to me – hyllningsbok to Jan Guillou had Guillou objections. It ended in a debate in sweden, where Jan Guillou asked to get their copies of the book signed. He suggested that it would be a rarity because the publisher would undoubtedly pull in the entire edition on the basis of sakfelen.
So long as I don’t need to sit in a live morning show opposite a assertive småleende Jan Guillou that promise to get my circulation is indented, then it has still gone well.
Read more texts of Augustin Erba , for example, about what to do when your favorite authors are working for the nazis .