Save Yourself Some Heartache
I was about nine years old when I wrote my first story, “Sawdust Tears”. It was my expression of grief over the leveling of our neighborhood woods. A place where all us kids played pretend, had a rigged up clubhouse, bike paths, and daily imagined our fantasies. It got leveled for a gas station. I let my father, my favorite parent, read the story and he laughed. I learned right then to not trust family and friends when it came to understanding or even appreciating my writings. This has been a lesson that has served me well through my life. It is a lesson in expectations. If you are a writer you will find that you, hopefully, have a handful of friends and family members who support you. Perhaps they’ve never even read what you’ve written but they are proud of you for your accomplishment. And, again, hopefully there will be a few who do and they’ll provide helpful constructive criticism and motivational support. Those people are treasures. I hope you have a few, like I do. That said, the vast majority will not. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve asked someone to read something or they’ve asked to read something and then the whole matter simply disappears never to be discussed again. Even if I’ve sent said masterpiece (ha!) to them. It is very important you not hold a grudge against these folks and here’s why. If you’re a reader you know that there are books you love, page turners you can’t put down, books you want to love but just cannot get going (I had to start Iain M. Banks’ Against A Dark Background four times!), books you try to read but just can’t understand (for me olde English kind of stuff), and stuff you just