Stephen Edger's Blog: Stephen Edger's blog

So you've spent hours/days/weeks/months/years (delete as appropriate) developing, writing, rewriting, editing, proof-reading your manuscript and you finally believe it is ready for the public to devour, enjoy and celebrate your artistry. You may publish it through traditional means (agent, publisher, long wait etc) or you may choose to jump on the "self-published" bandwagon and dream of reaching best selling status like Amanda Hocking and others. Either way, you have a published manuscript that is available for purchase /or download. You know your work is spectacular, after all, it took long enough to complete! You start to promote your work like a hooker on a street corner, desperate to sell what you're offering to anybody. Remember, you are doing them a favour because they are going to love your work!
A few days/weeks/months (delete as appropriate) pass and you start to receive reviews from readers. Some may be good, some may be kind, some may make you cry with joy, but eventually you're going to receive a bad review. I guarantee there will be at least 1 person out there who doesn't like it or just doesn't get it. No matter how much time and effort you've spent on your. Ow published work, somebody is going to hate it. Accepting this fact is step-1 in getting over a bad review.
What is step-2? Easy: don't let the bad review affect you. Okay, so it's easier said than done. What will help you get over it is remembering why you started writing the manuscript in the 1st place. Unless you are incredibly naive you didn't start writing because you wanted critical acclaim or because you expected Hollywood to come knocking at your door. The truth is, most authors choose to write because they feel compelled to do it; a burning desire that won't go away until that final full stop has been typed. So what if Joe Bloggs said he didn't like it? He is just 1 person, who probably has no idea that you put your heart and soul into the story he didn't like. Believe it or not, despite selling millions of copies globally, I know at least half a dozen people who didn't enjoy Dan Brown's 'Da Vinci Code'. Do you think he cares? I doubt it very much.
Step-3 is starting to write again and vowing to put double the effort in this time. Let's face it, you were always going to write again because it is in your bones to be a writer. Plus, despite the negative review, hearing from fans of your work outweighs the bad review!
If you're a writer, keep writing. If you're a reader, remember how much work goes into publishing a novel and remember the author is human and has feelings too.

Much love,
Stephen

Today, my first novel Integartion reached number75 in Kindle's Top100 paid thrillers. I am overwhelmed by the number of downloads Integration has now received.
I tried to get it published "the traditional way" in early 2011 without success. I opted for the self-published route via Amazon because I wasn't prepared to throw my manuscript away or leave it on a shelf: I had spent just too long writing and developing it.
That it has now reached enough downloads to sit in Amazon's Top100 is an incredible feeling and I have a smile on my face that is going to be hard to shake.
An update on my latest work Taken: Wrote another 1200 words today so 10K words completed so far. Need to pick up the pace if I am to complete 1st draft before end of August.
Happy reading and writing to you all!

Hello All!
Welcome to my blog. I am hoping to use this space to share the joys and frustrations of writing a novel so that, you, the reader, can better understand the pain and eventual ecstacy we authors go through with our writing.
I have just started a new project, which has the working title 'Taken'. It is about the investigation into a 7-year-old girl who has been abducted from outside of her school. I have written 8000 words so far and am aiming to write between 80 and 85 thousand words by the time I finish.
It takes me about 3-months to complete a first draft of a manuscript so I am hoping to finish typing by early August and will then commence editing. Editing and proof-reading is the worst part of the process as it is difficult to remain objective when reading my own work. It is also difficult to identify contradictions and errors as my eyes tend to glide over words and passages as I already know what is going to happen. I have my wife and mother-in-law who has also carry out proof-reading for me and on 'Redemption', my most recent book, I managed to secure the services of a semi-professional proof-reader, which was really beneficial.
I've had a bit of a bug for the last week so haven't really had much will power to write but hoping to get back to it as quickly as possible.
Thanks for taking the time to read this. Please let me know if you have any comments or feedback or even questions about writing and I'll be happy to assist. You can follow me on Twitter as @stephenedger if you wish. Until next time, happy reading!