It’s the time of the year when writers are asking readers to leave reviews as presents, while still reminding them that feedback is for life, not just for Christmas.
In all seriousness, writers often squawk about how important reviews are to them and that they’d love you to leave one as a present at any time of year. It’s not just about rankings and sales, though. Sometimes, those reviews can be just the nudge a writer needs at a difficult time. I’m not just talking about the rave reviews either. Thoughtful feedback that offers suggestions on how the author can improve are more than welcome. We want to keep developing and we take every bit of feedback on board, even the bad stuff.
This was brought back to me in two conversations I’ve had this week with friends, one who’s read one of my books and the other who saw me perform at an event last month.
The first comments came from my childhood best friend who’s read But By Degrees and not Valerie. She says she keeps getting halfway through Valerie but can’t finish it – and not because she thinks it’s terrible. It’s about the book and what it represents to her.
She said that she sees my books as helping her to end chapters in her life, that But By Degrees was the book that closed a particularly nasty chapter and that she’s not quite ready to close another one by finishing Valerie.
To me, that’s incredible. The idea that my books have such an impact on one of the people I love most is amazing, and I don’t care how long it takes her to close those chapters and continue her story. Valerie will be waiting when she’s ready.
The second conversation I had was with someone I know through attending a life drawing class (where, coincidentally, my best friend was the model this week). He’d seen me “in action” for the first time during the November Artwalk (Wakefield’s bi-monthly evening of culture) and approached to tell me how good it was.
He didn’t stop there though. Instead, he gave a bit more detail about why he thought it was good, namely that the delivery was packed full of emotion and that it combined with quality writing to create something special (I’m paraphrasing but he won’t mind).
For someone who enjoys that type of dramatic writing but doesn’t think she’s very good at delivering it, that was beautiful to hear. It’s given me the confidence to consider performing more in the future, not to mention recording more for posterity.
So, while the kind of feedback that promotes sales and spreads the word about my work is more than welcome, this type of quieter, more personal feedback is also welcome too. It can give writers the encouragement they need to continue and develop. And that is a truly a great present at any time of the year.
Here’s that performance that my friend was talking about:
