Critical reviews

Rick wasn’t crazy about our Christmas poem this year.

It was bound to happen. Every December since 1992, which was the year we got married, I’ve cranked out a Christmas newsletter comprising about eight to twelve stanzas of rhyming pentameter, covering the events of the past year for us.

Initially, it was a lark, just something I thought would be fun for our first Christmas together. And there was plenty to tell that year: our wedding, the arrival of our first niece, our honeymoon in Venezuela, a trip to Colorado, a new job for Rick. And somehow I was able to make all of it rhyme.

Some years it was more difficult than others, but every year I managed to come up with something. This year, too, though I had to confess in the course of the poem that it hadn’t been a particularly eventful year – but that sometimes an uneventful year suits us just fine. The kids are well-established in school, happy and doing well academically; Rick and I both have plenty of work and plenty to do in our downtime. No safaris, cruises or mountain treks to describe; no major life changes to touch upon. And that’s fine with us.

Still, Rick didn’t think it was a very good poem, when it was done. But I didn’t really mind. After nearly 25 years as a professional writer under one guise or another, I’m pretty thick-skinned. Not everything I write resonates with everyone. Most of the editors I currently work with tend to offer very little criticism of my work, but I don’t necessarily see that as an altogether good thing, knowing it’s mostly because we’ve worked together long enough that I know just what they like.

And criticism can come from various places: not just editors and not just bosses. Last year a local realtor asked me to write a marketing piece for her, describing a historic property that was up for sale. I worked on it for days, and the realtor was delighted with the results, but one of my closest friends visited the property during the open house and said afterwards, not knowing I’d written the marketing materials, “The house is wonderful, but the brochure didn’t do it justice at all.”

I couldn’t really understand why she didn’t like it, and I don’t really know why Rick wasn’t too fond of this year’s Christmas poem. But in a paradoxical way, sometimes this kind of criticism makes me happy, because it reminds me that I’ve reached a point in my life and in my writing career when I understand that not everyone will like everything – and that one off-the-mark piece doesn’t make me an incompetent writer. It’s subjective, and I don’t take it to heart when someone doesn’t like something I’ve written.

On the other hand, it’s always useful to listen to people’s criticism and learn from it. I don’t have to impress or please every reader with every piece of writing, but I’d rather write marketing copy that my friends find appealing, and I’d rather write a Christmas poem that Rick considers an engaging reflection of our year.

So being thick-skinned is good in my profession, but been attuned to feedback is as well. I’ve learned a lot from pieces I’ve written that have been well-received, but I’ve probably learned more from those that haven’t. I put effort into everything I write. And sometimes it’s invaluable to learn, through negative feedback, how that same amount of effort might have been better used. And how I might be able to do better next time.

They really really (don't) like me

A good friend and I were having one of those conversations that you can have only with someone who really is a good friend: we each disclosed the names of people we were certain didn’t like us and what evidence we had.

What sparked this particular discussion was something I’d received earlier in the day by email. It was an essay by the late Erma Bombeck titled “If I Had My Life to Live Over,” and although for the most part it was inspiring, I told my friend that there was one point I disagreed with: the one in which she wrote “Don't worry about who doesn't like you.”

“I actually do think it’s worthwhile to pay attention to people who don’t like you,” I admitted. “In fact, I think I’ve made some very beneficial course corrections over the years based on the awareness that someone didn’t seem to like me, after considering why that may be and whether they might be justified.”

And that’s true. It’s not like I run into people all the time from whom I get a negative vibe, but it does happen once in a while, and if it’s someone I have fairly regular interactions with, I really do find it useful to think back as to why that may be the case. More often than not, I can think of a comment I may have made that wasn’t necessarily very kind-spirited, or a dismissive act related to them, or a time I was simply self-absorbed or self-aggrandizing in their presence.

“But aren’t there some people who just seem to not like you for no reason at all?” my friend argued. “What if you really can’t think of a good reason? Or the reason you come up with just doesn’t make sense?”

I agreed that sometimes this is the case, and there's always something to be said for accepting the things we cannot change. Sometimes you just have to realize you can’t please everyone. But those times when I’ve recognized the validity of someone else’s negative responses to me, it’s been valuable: even if I can’t erase what I’ve done, I can avoid making the same mistake in the future. I can be more careful not to be catty or dismissive or self-aggrandizing again.

I still have a vivid memory of being eight years old and riding in the back seat of my friend Julie’s family’s station wagon. This was in the days when kids were still allowed to ride in the cargo area behind the back seat, and that’s where my friend’s 6-year-old sister and her friend were positioned when I heard the sister’s friend whisper, “Do you like Julie’s friend?” The other 6-year-old made some kind of affirmative comment and then the first little girl spoke again. “Well, I don’t! She has curly hair! Yuck!”

You’d think this would be a traumatic memory, but even at the age of eight I realized the ridiculousness of it. Curly hair? The quintessential thing-I-could-do-nothing-about, and even at that young age I realized there was no point it letting this kind of prejudice bother me.

So, with all due respect to the beloved essayist Erma Bombeck and her generally trenchant points about living life fully, I would disagree with her on this one, at least partially. Do pay attention to people who don’t like you. Give them their fair due. Think about whether their attitude may reflect a weakness on your part that you can correct.

And if not, or if you do correct it and it doesn’t seem to help, accept that fact and move on. Focus on people who do seem to like you, and learn from them what you’re doing right. Everyone can’t like everyone. Trust me. We curly-haired girls learn fast.

The honeymoon period: I've written the book, but no one has read it yet

I keep reminding myself that these few short days are the honeymoon period for my book.

The book is in print, the publicity effort has been launched, the order button on various websites has been enabled. The book exists.

And yet, and yet, no one yet has the book in hand. The earliest the printer could promise it, via the fastest shipping available – which I have no reason to think anyone but me opted to pay for – was later this week. No electronic version of my book exists publicly. Both draft copies are in my possession.

So what that means is that my book is completed but there’s no one in the world with a copy of it in hand right now. No one is actually reading it at this moment. Most likely no one will read it tomorrow either. Not until the end of the week…and that’s only if someone were to read it the moment it arrived in the mail, which not only modesty but reality forces me to admit is highly unlikely.

Hence, the honeymoon period. Right now, I get to float along on the victorious sense that my book is done – after more than three years of work, it’s done – and everyone who knows me seems happy for my success. My success in completing my book, that is. No one is congratulating me on my success in having written a good or readable or worthwhile book, because no one has read it yet.

So I’m fully immersing myself in this lull, this brief time before I have to get down to the serious anxiety about what people think of it. Soon enough – within a matter of days – there will be people actually reading my book. Even if they don’t rip it open the minute the mail carrier drops it on their doorstep or in their mailbox, within a few days they’ll be scanning the opening pages, flipping through, checking out the back cover or the acknowledgments. Right now is the only time I get to bask in the pride of having finally finished this long-struggling project, without having to confront any actual criticism.

Because the fact is, there will be criticism. It’s a provocative book on a controversial topic: how I challenged my 9-year-old to run a mile or more with me every day for a year. On the most basic level, that plan was controversial from the outset, as I explain in the book: when I went to an online discussion group for runners, expecting to find other parent/child combinations attempting to maintain a long running streak, I found no endorsements at all, only anonymous posters saying they thought my idea was an awful one.

But that’s the easy part of the controversy, the part about whether or not it’s okay to encourage a nine-year-old to run a daily mile. What’s harder is that the thoughts about parenting I’ve so candidly shared in the book are themselves divisive in some ways. I had about eight friends and family members read the manuscript during the revision process; most liked it, but one or two warned me that it was simply too harsh; that by being so judgmental in some ways and downright negative in others, I was creating in myself an unsympathetic character, a mother who was far too critical of her own child.

So the revision process, for me, was mostly an effort of toning it all down, stage after stage. I removed one adjective after another, finding ways to be ever less caustic in my parental observations. Too much, some of the readers had warned. Too much negativity, too much anxiety, too many questions about what constitutes good parenting.

In other words, I’ve already had a taste of the mixed reactions my book provokes. And that was among just eight readers. In another few days, ten times that many people might be reading it and judging me.

But after three years of work to get this book completed, I honestly believe I’m ready. I understand that some people will be taken aback by the raw honesty with which I depict the less joyful aspects of parenting and family life. Just as people asked us how a mother could submit her son to the physical rigors of a daily mile while we were doing the streak, people have asked me how I can be so candid about both the positive and negative aspects of my life.

My children have seen this book. They know what I write about and how I write. My parents and my husband do too. They accept it for what it is: my best attempts to give literary expression to my most authentic feelings. I know that some readers of my book won’t really like it all that much. Others, I hope, will like it a lot. But of course, I don’t know. And in the end, all I can really hope for is that everyone who reads it respects the fact that I took the time to write it.

Time will tell. But right now, I’m just enjoying the lull between publication and availability. I’ll never have these few days again, when the congrats-on-publishing are pouring in but there aren’t any how-could-you-say-all-of-this to balance it out. The time will come, but for right now, I’m happy to be in this buffer zone, this post-publication, pre-printing cone of serenity.