Writing, Blogging and Criticism.

When I was ten, my English teacher told me, “You have a gift. Make sure you use it. I fully expect to walk into a bookstore one day and see your name on a novel.” It’s been many years and the path of my life has taken me many different ways, but I’ve never really forgotten what she said.

Heading into college, I wondered if I could make a decent living as a writer, and decided to pursue my other passion, biology, with the intention of going to vet school. I received my biology degree, changed my mind about vet school and after two and a half years as a biologist at NIH, decided that while science in the classroom is fun, science in the lab is boring. For the past three years, I’ve been a stay-home mom and part-time vet tech, occupations which have given me plenty to write about.

Almost a year ago, a friend urged me to start a blog, which I did mainly to keep out of town relatives up to date on my kids. As it turned out, I love blogging and have yet to run out of things to talk about. It’s awakened that desire to be a professional writer. I think I’ve got the chops for it, and given some help with navigating the industry, I’m confident that I could eventually be successful.

Then someone anonymously left an unkind comment on one of my posts and I learned something about myself. I’m not that concerned about the opinion of someone who doesn’t have the guts to leave their name, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say it stung a little. When you’re good at something, it’s natural to want other people to think you’re good at it too. Reminders that not everyone will agree with you can be hard to swallow. Before I can make my way as a writer, I need to develop a thicker skin, because criticism is as inevitable as the day is long.

Over the summer, a columnist in my hometown wrote a piece about pitbull bans and I strongly disagreed with him. We exchanged a few emails on the subject, but I tried to make it clear that while I thought he was wrong, I respected his perspective. When I looked up the column online, I was shocked to see some of the hateful comments readers had left behind. I wonder if the author reads the comments on the site, and if he does, how he deals with them.

After that, I happened upon the blog of one of my favorite authors, Tess Gerritsen, who has twenty novels to her name. When you read her blog, you can feel her anxiety about book reviews and sales, about success and failure, and it struck me that even a seasoned author like Gerritsen is prone to the same misgivings as the rest of us.

I think the Internet makes it easier to be cruel or hateful because of the impersonal nature of cyberspace. I read things online all the time that I hope people would never say to another person’s face. It’s easier to be mean when you don’t have to look someone in the eye or worry about bumping into them at the grocery store. So I also believe a writer needs to consider the source when taking criticism over the Internet. The author who supported pitbull bans is not a horrible, dog hating person, and the people who left angry comments are probably not violent or antisocial, they’re probably just animal lovers who feel strongly about the subject and who reacted emotionally after reading the column.

In addition, a writer needs to decide how to handle comments that turn ugly. A difference in opinion is one thing; nasty accusations that lend nothing to the conversation are, in my opinion, better off being deleted.

I dismissed the comment on my blog because I’m smart enough to know that not everyone will agree with me, and I’m not egotistical enough to believe that my opinion is the only one out there or that I am always right. For me, my goal is to not take criticism personally, but to use it as a tool to make myself a better writer, to expand my readership, to reach out to a different audience through words.

**Crossposted at The Great Walls Of Baltimore