Creatures Bedazzled

Since my book’s release has been made known, I’ve been getting extremely awesome feedback. People I have never met before have been pledging their future loyalty and, I must say, I’m truly honoured. It would be all so very Cinderella-like if it weren’t for those opposing opinions which would keep me up at night, had I not already grown an extremely thick skin over the past months during the querying process (thank you, publishers who would rather concentrate on kissing up to already known authors).

In the last few weeks, I have gotten pretty strange remarks about my dark creatures who can’t be blamed for my apparent “need to hop on the bandwagon”. Nowadays, if a writer has chosen to use blood-drinking creatures in their novels, they WILL have to explain that their monsters DON’T glitter in the sunlight while holding a carrot. My dragons are now under the scrutiny of anti-Eragon firefighters. If a character ventures so much as a cackle, an author WILL DEFINITELY be accused of trying to milk the Harry Potter cow for all its worth (I’d like to see a Malaysian witch being held at wand-point. Be assured that the owner will be laughed at to death).

We fortunately live in a free world and everyone is entitled to their opinions. Critics are an important part of literature because I really do want to know if I should keep on writing or if I should just get another pet. But what makes half the world so ready to stick their claws out at you?

"It's not the critic who counts. Not the man who points out where the strong man stumbled or where the doer of great deeds could have done them better" [Theodore Roosevelt]
"The proper function of the critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it" [D.H. Lawrence]
"A critic is a man who knows the way but can't drive the car" [Kenneth Tynan]

(Source: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/critic)

Sounds to me like general dissatisfaction all around. All I can say is (and my novel would still not be publishable if it weren’t for my friends and family eliminating all the rubbish) that I make the corrections and enjoy the praise, but only if it means not losing my own voice.

“Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.”—Cyril Connolly.

My novel is based in Malaysia where dark spirits and beings are a part of everyday life. There are people living in remote areas that still place knives at their front doors before they go to sleep because the Asian vampire is afraid of sharp objects. No one worth their weight in rice would go walking on the beach at midnight or utter their name in the middle of a cemetery or jungle for fear of being whisked away by ghosts. People go to fortune tellers and shamans to inquire about auspicious days for weddings and business deals or if the neighbour is going to steal their newspaper again. That’s just the way it is and that’s just the way I tell it in my stories.

I seem not to have gotten the memo saying that dark creatures are now all under copyright, soooorry! Being a writer means being able to swallow bad critiques without running through the streets and pulling your hair out (but feel free to do so when you get your first award!). Different tastes and opinions make the world a unique, lovable place. I just wonder who they’ll compare me to once they read my novel and meet my pervert of a goblin and his demon-monkey friend. (Evil grin….)

Have a great weekend, my nice other half of the worldJ