The Power of Praise
Jamieson Villeneuve
June 11, 2008
I am constantly surprised by my readers.
I think most authors feel this way. Though writers try to surround themselves with friends and family (so that they don´t go crazy during the writing process) writing is a fairly solitary craft.
When I sit down at my computer and open up my current work in progress, I let myself become involved in my characters, the world I´ve created, the fantasies that I have brought to life on paper.
Like most writers, I write because I have to. I write because it is the air I breathe, the blood of life. I know that if I didn´t write, I´d go crazy. Or become crazier than I already am, but that´s neither here nor there.
I write for me, I write because I have to. When I´m clicking away at my keyboard, I don´t spare a moment´s thought for what others may think of my stories. I don´t spare a minute to think of how the story will be perceived. I embrace the story and let the words flow from me, not thinking for a moment about a reader´s reaction.
Which is why it´s always a lovely surprise when I hear from readers who have enjoyed my work.
I have received a fair amount of emails from readers but and every one feels like the first time. When I click open an email and read glowing words about my work, it´s always a shock to me. I don´t know if it´s something that I will ever grow used to.
The other day, I received an email from someone who had read my gay paranormal historical novel Valentine. The reader praised the novel and said I had written one of the best gay romances he had ever read.
Heady stuff for someone unused to praise.
I wrote back to the reader thanking him for his words but I don´t know if he knows how thankful I am to him for taking the time to write his email and say such lovely things about my little book. His email filled me with such warmth, such light. It made all the revisions, edits, writers block and hours spent at the computer worth it.
Though I don´t write with the reader in mind, it´s always gratifying to me when one reader reaches out and shares their reaction.
Most writers are pretty fragile about their work. Most don´t take constructive criticism very well. These are our characters, our story that we have slaved over and written and rewritten. Writers put their blood, sweat and tears into their work and, more often than not, a lot of themselves ends up in the story they are writing. This is true of everything I have written. If you read one of my novels, you are reading part of me.
So when a reader reaches out across the great wide divide of the Internet and tells us how much they enjoyed our work, how they love this or that character, how they didn´t want the book to end…
Well, that is the power of praise. It makes a solitary craft not so solitary after all. And it fills us with enough hope to keep writing.
Valentine is available now from Cobblestone Press!
Buy a copy and read an excerpt here:
http://www.cobblestone-press.com/catalog/books/valentinejw.htm
Check out the Valentine blog here: www.valentineanovel.blogspot.com
I think most authors feel this way. Though writers try to surround themselves with friends and family (so that they don´t go crazy during the writing process) writing is a fairly solitary craft.
When I sit down at my computer and open up my current work in progress, I let myself become involved in my characters, the world I´ve created, the fantasies that I have brought to life on paper.
Like most writers, I write because I have to. I write because it is the air I breathe, the blood of life. I know that if I didn´t write, I´d go crazy. Or become crazier than I already am, but that´s neither here nor there.
I write for me, I write because I have to. When I´m clicking away at my keyboard, I don´t spare a moment´s thought for what others may think of my stories. I don´t spare a minute to think of how the story will be perceived. I embrace the story and let the words flow from me, not thinking for a moment about a reader´s reaction.
Which is why it´s always a lovely surprise when I hear from readers who have enjoyed my work.
I have received a fair amount of emails from readers but and every one feels like the first time. When I click open an email and read glowing words about my work, it´s always a shock to me. I don´t know if it´s something that I will ever grow used to.
The other day, I received an email from someone who had read my gay paranormal historical novel Valentine. The reader praised the novel and said I had written one of the best gay romances he had ever read.
Heady stuff for someone unused to praise.
I wrote back to the reader thanking him for his words but I don´t know if he knows how thankful I am to him for taking the time to write his email and say such lovely things about my little book. His email filled me with such warmth, such light. It made all the revisions, edits, writers block and hours spent at the computer worth it.
Though I don´t write with the reader in mind, it´s always gratifying to me when one reader reaches out and shares their reaction.
Most writers are pretty fragile about their work. Most don´t take constructive criticism very well. These are our characters, our story that we have slaved over and written and rewritten. Writers put their blood, sweat and tears into their work and, more often than not, a lot of themselves ends up in the story they are writing. This is true of everything I have written. If you read one of my novels, you are reading part of me.
So when a reader reaches out across the great wide divide of the Internet and tells us how much they enjoyed our work, how they love this or that character, how they didn´t want the book to end…
Well, that is the power of praise. It makes a solitary craft not so solitary after all. And it fills us with enough hope to keep writing.
Valentine is available now from Cobblestone Press!
Buy a copy and read an excerpt here:
http://www.cobblestone-press.com/catalog/books/valentinejw.htm
Check out the Valentine blog here: www.valentineanovel.blogspot.com
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