Insecurities

I’ve been rewriting my Tem and John stories (singular at the moment, because I’m still working on the first one).  I’ve made this attempt more than once, but this time feels more successful than the past ones.

However, here’s the rub.

I’m not sure why I am doing it.

Somehow, in my mind, I feel that if I’m going to redo them there has to be some purpose, so I get in my head that I have to sell them.  So as I’m writing, I’m constantly thinking about whether or not I’m doing well enough to sell my writing… Which is stressful and horrible, but, of course, I’m obsessive so I can’t kick it out of my head.

A friend of mine who writes in the genre has been selling her writing now for years… she was one of the first of the authors I knew in this genre to go “pro” and she’s built a little business for herself – to the point that I actually found her on Goodreads and some of her stories had 150 ratings.  I know that’s not “big time” like some authors, but for such a niche genre, it’s pretty impressive to me.

But here’s the thing… they weren’t all good reviews.  She averaged between 3 and 4 out of 5, which, you know, is decent… but the average came out of a lot of 5s and a lot of 1s.  I read through some of the reviews people had left, and they pretty much split in a predictable way – the 5s were mostly, “Oh, so sweet, I love the characters, lovey dovey loveliness!” and the 1s were “I hate the way this author writes/I hate the style/the sentence structure is unreadable.”

On reviewer even broke down, line by line, several sections of this author’s writing and analyzed why (she thought) the writing was so terrible.  And some of the things she pointed out I realized are actually true about this author – there are certain patterns in the way this author constructs sentences that are quite frequently used, and give this author a very particular “voice” I always thought (though I couldn’t have identified why until I read this review.)

Now… I was always a little envious of that voice.  I thought it made her a better author than me.  I thought it made her sound more polished and professional. It definitely makes her distinctive.

But seeing the way so many people reacted to this style choice made me… trip over my previous perceptions. I had perceived this other writer as better than me because of the stylistic choices she makes, but maybe it isn’t choices, maybe it’s just habits.  Seeing it from someone else’s perspective, I can now see that certain choices are overdone, that certain things I thought made her better than me, actually… maybe don’t.

But it also made me terrified to sell my writing. I don’t know, as she and I have lost touch, but I hope that she is able to brush off those critiques, or grow from them, or… anything but take them negatively into her heart – which is what I would do.  I already pick apart everything I do, already have anxiety that I’m not a good writer, and not… good enough… and if people tore me down and tore me apart for the way I write… like I saw in those reviews… it would be very destructive to me.

Of course, the answer is… don’t share. Don’t sell. Bad reviews are part of that package, so… I either figure out how to live with them, or I don’t pursue going the path this other author took.

And on top of that… I question my own critical perception. I always thought of this writer as talented – more so than I am. So if I was wrong about her… how much worse does my writing have to be? If I couldn’t see the weaknesses in her writing… how much more am I missing in my own??

I don’t write in her style. I never have. I also don’t write the genre the way she chooses to – in fact that is the REASON I’m rewriting my Tem and John stories.  I don’t like the “brat” being a juvenile, child-like character.  I have grown beyond that in my own development of my identity and what now appeals to me and interests me in writing. But… the positive reviews of her writing – they were all drawn to that.  To the sweetness.  To the innocence.

My writing isn’t sweet.  It isn’t innocent. It’s dark… on a light day.

And my rewrites are going more so.

And I worry that… I don’t have the writing skill to make the skill people happy… and I’ve taken away the sweet childlike brat and stern loving dom tropes that make the people who don’t care about skill happy.

I’m missing it from both directions.

And that makes me wonder… why I’m doing this. Why even write in this genre? Why not actually write something real… that I could really publish… that… the world could read, not just 150 women on Goodreads looking for cute spanky brat fic.

Sigh.

It’s been a rough day.

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