My Harshest Critic: How a Blistering Review of My First Book Silenced the Critic Within

By Maureen Anderson

I always imagined getting my first book reviewed by a big newspaper. I had heard many wonderful things about Staying the Course: A Runner’s Toughest Race, the memoir I wrote for Dick Beardsley, by the time it was written up in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Dick’s a marathon champion turned farm accident survivor and recovering drug addict. The reviewer had a lot of respect for Dick, but thought someone else should have written his story.

“He deserves a better book. This one is filled with exclamation points and italicized words instead of passion or insight. It’s a soulless, connect-the-dots portrait.”

Ouch.

Writing Staying the Course had been a mystical experience for me. I was filled with such purpose and peace it was as if magic dust had been sprinkled on my computer. Everything I’m good at, everything I’ve ever loved doing, I put to use-- and lived up to my potential. Finally. It broke my heart to turn in the manuscript because I wouldn’t have it to work on anymore.

Then this. We continued getting e-mail from readers who loved the book and were inspired to change their lives because of it. It didn’t help. They say there’s no such thing as bad publicity. I doubted “they” are people whose work is trashed in the media.

It was like taking years to build a dream home, finally moving in, and then spending one night there. Before I could get back from the grocery store the next morning someone had set fire to it. There was nothing left but ashes.

I did okay at first. Part of me felt like a real artist. To have gotten to the point where people are taking shots-- at least I was getting noticed. I had a new appreciation for those who work in the public arena. I was proud of taking a risk, proud of doing my best. I told myself that what anyone thought was really none of my business.

Then it sunk in. For a couple of days I pulled the review out and read it over and over, as if memorizing it could take the sting out of the “I can’t believe this happened” feeling. It didn’t work. I sobbed. My husband’s patience was tested. Better equipped to solve problems than sit with feelings, he had difficulty understanding that the way to help was just to be there. My daughter was unmoved as well. “You think that’s bad?” she exclaimed. “A girl in my class said the snacks you made taste like laundry soap. And she’s tasted laundry soap so she knows!” The child was punished-- no snack privileges for a week. Ironically, my husband soothed this time, wishing he could take away the reviewer’s snack privileges, too.

The thing was, just because the review hurt didn’t mean it was wrong. Maybe I wasn’t a very good writer. You can take everything anyone ever said about the book. What got printed was what this person said. Some resume.

It was about that time that a writing coach critiqued an essay of mine about my feelings on my daughter’s first day of kindergarten. She thought the piece was “remarkably depressing.” There’s no lesson learned, she added, no resolution to a problem. An essay should inspire, she continued, and this one didn’t.

There it was. Two independent sources. My writing sucked.

Or did it? Everyone else who read the kindergarten essay loved it. I was proud of it, and that hadn’t changed. I thanked the coach for her assessment, and submitted it to someone else that evening. Before long, the editor of Spirituality & Health magazine was on the phone, wanting to publish it. “It’s wonderful!” he said. “One of our editors read it and said, ‘You’re going to love this one’-- and she doesn’t even have kids…” The piece appeared that spring, a three-page spread complete with photos.

Then it clicked. What I’d been taught in sales training: SWSWSW. Some will, some won’t, so what. So the person who reviewed my book didn’t like it. So what. My newfound detachment helped me realize he was right about a couple of things. The book is filled with exclamation points and italicized words, and I would go easier on those if I was writing it today-- though Dick says I got it right the first time. He’s all exclamation points when he talks, but would be the first to tell you he’s not long on insight. He’s fired up about life, but he’s not introspective.

Those who’ve heard him speak say the book reads like you’re sitting across the table from him as he tells stories. That was my goal, and I achieved it. Dick doesn’t deserve a better book. He wanted this one, because it reflects him.

I don’t aspire to be what the critics call literary, whatever that means. It’s not my style. I want to inspire people, but I want to do it simply-- over coffee.

Rejections still hurt. I recently had an agent trash my latest book proposal so mercilessly it made the Star Tribune review feel like a bad hair day. I had another good cry, and then realized she was right. I started over, and soon signed with a different agent who loved the revised proposal. Maybe I’ll get a book deal out of it, maybe I won’t. I’m not the only one writing my life story, of course. But like a true journalist, I’ll keep experimenting… and reporting back on the results.

Maureen Anderson is the host of the syndicated radio program The Career Clinic. She is also the co-author, with Dick Beardsley, of Staying the Course: A Runner’s Toughest Race (University of Minnesota Press, 2002). And she is the co-author, with Jon Hovde, of Left for Dead: A Second Life after Vietnam (Minnesota, 2005). You can reach her at maureen@thecareerclinic.com.

Sponsored links

Ring binders

 

Make a Real Living as a Freelance Writer!

How to find a book publisher

Home

Text on this site Copyright © 1998-2007 Absolute Write, all rights reserved.
Please contact the authors if you'd like to reprint articles on this site.  All copyrights are retained by original authors.  And plagiarizers will be rounded up, handcuffed, and stuck into a very small and humid room wherein they must listen to Barney sing the "I Love You, You Love Me" song over and over again.

writers writing software