No story today. Sorry. Just a couple of random thoughts.
First random thought: For the last couple of nights, Snickers, my beloved rat terrier who thinks he is both lap dog and guard dog, has awakened around 2:30 AM to run to the window and bark at deer near the front porch. Honestly, I could probably live with the growling and barking. It is the violent banging on the window with his front paws and the jumping on my bed (my bed is next to the window) that thoroughly awaken me. Of course, with me, I wake up and cannot get back to sleep. So, although I am amazed he can hear deer walking in the front yard from upstairs in a house with closed windows, I find his 2:30 AM wake-up call rather irritating. I think I need to figure out why the deer are coming to the front door. I assume it is not because they want to say goodnight. Maybe they are stalkers, come to spy on me in the middle of the night?
Second random thought: I was VERY excited last week to "sell" over 3000 free copies of The Disposable Noble Wife (now available on Amazon KDP Prime for free reading). I was even more excited to receive my first reader review from that huge response... until I read the review. It was less than favorable. Good news is that I now know I am a deluded mental patient. WHACK!
Not a problem. One of my fans who has read the book came to my rescue with a favorable review, and that made me feel much better. My son also chimed in, privately, to add his support. He noted that he was "blown away" a little while ago when someone he knows asked him WHY he was doing something that was morally right if he was not going to somehow benefit from doing so. He then remarked to me that there are an awful lot of people out there who just don't understand what being a "good person" means and that if they read a story about a "good person," they would simply not believe it is realistic because it is so far out of their own experience. My son's comments also made me feel better and I added an author note to the end of the book explaining that I may not have been technically ready to write the story, but it was modelled after a real person and I felt I needed to write it.
Then came two more reader ratings and reviews. One of them said that it was not a book at all and readers should not waste their money. One star from that reader. BOOM!
The other review was two stars and actually somewhat helpful. It let me know that I should revert back to my original ending -- which I did. Oh, but THEN I saw there was a comment under that first, nasty review. I went to check it out. I am now not only a deluded mental patient, but also that I am a self-righteous racist. Honestly, I was a little stunned at first. I did not know quite what to think. In all my years, I have never been called either of those things, so it came as somewhat of a surprize to read them. I was hurt, to say the least, but as I thought about it, I began to laugh.
Not only are all these three reviews in such STARK contrast to the Reader's Favorite review and Award I received after going through multiple rounds of judging, not only does the book have 13 anonymous "Likes" now after the 3000+ sold, but the only other review of this dark, cruel person who wrote the first negative review is on a product. Yet s/he so hated what I wrote that s/he just had to come back to make a second derrogatory comment about it. I must have struck a nerve! In and of itself, that tells me my book (or non-book) is not really all that bad. I guess that I write stories that either you LOVE or you HATE, but nothing in between.
Still, even negative comments have their uses. I am using the ones I received to try to improve what I have written so that it is more suited to a broader audience. I have asked another Christian author with whom I am acquainted to read the book and give me some objective suggestions.
And that is what we call "rolling with the punches."
First random thought: For the last couple of nights, Snickers, my beloved rat terrier who thinks he is both lap dog and guard dog, has awakened around 2:30 AM to run to the window and bark at deer near the front porch. Honestly, I could probably live with the growling and barking. It is the violent banging on the window with his front paws and the jumping on my bed (my bed is next to the window) that thoroughly awaken me. Of course, with me, I wake up and cannot get back to sleep. So, although I am amazed he can hear deer walking in the front yard from upstairs in a house with closed windows, I find his 2:30 AM wake-up call rather irritating. I think I need to figure out why the deer are coming to the front door. I assume it is not because they want to say goodnight. Maybe they are stalkers, come to spy on me in the middle of the night?
Second random thought: I was VERY excited last week to "sell" over 3000 free copies of The Disposable Noble Wife (now available on Amazon KDP Prime for free reading). I was even more excited to receive my first reader review from that huge response... until I read the review. It was less than favorable. Good news is that I now know I am a deluded mental patient. WHACK!
Not a problem. One of my fans who has read the book came to my rescue with a favorable review, and that made me feel much better. My son also chimed in, privately, to add his support. He noted that he was "blown away" a little while ago when someone he knows asked him WHY he was doing something that was morally right if he was not going to somehow benefit from doing so. He then remarked to me that there are an awful lot of people out there who just don't understand what being a "good person" means and that if they read a story about a "good person," they would simply not believe it is realistic because it is so far out of their own experience. My son's comments also made me feel better and I added an author note to the end of the book explaining that I may not have been technically ready to write the story, but it was modelled after a real person and I felt I needed to write it.
Then came two more reader ratings and reviews. One of them said that it was not a book at all and readers should not waste their money. One star from that reader. BOOM!
The other review was two stars and actually somewhat helpful. It let me know that I should revert back to my original ending -- which I did. Oh, but THEN I saw there was a comment under that first, nasty review. I went to check it out. I am now not only a deluded mental patient, but also that I am a self-righteous racist. Honestly, I was a little stunned at first. I did not know quite what to think. In all my years, I have never been called either of those things, so it came as somewhat of a surprize to read them. I was hurt, to say the least, but as I thought about it, I began to laugh.
Not only are all these three reviews in such STARK contrast to the Reader's Favorite review and Award I received after going through multiple rounds of judging, not only does the book have 13 anonymous "Likes" now after the 3000+ sold, but the only other review of this dark, cruel person who wrote the first negative review is on a product. Yet s/he so hated what I wrote that s/he just had to come back to make a second derrogatory comment about it. I must have struck a nerve! In and of itself, that tells me my book (or non-book) is not really all that bad. I guess that I write stories that either you LOVE or you HATE, but nothing in between.
Still, even negative comments have their uses. I am using the ones I received to try to improve what I have written so that it is more suited to a broader audience. I have asked another Christian author with whom I am acquainted to read the book and give me some objective suggestions.
And that is what we call "rolling with the punches."
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