A strange holiday… and hard days
Whilst writing this I’m at home in my “cave” in Solør. I should have been at Gran Canaria on the second week of a three week vacation. I travelled down there about one and a half week ago, very much ready for a vacation where I would relax, enjoy life, perhaps write a piece or two for my blogs, and do a bit of editing on book number 8. On Sunday I got the tragic message that my grandmother suddenly and unexpected had left this world. Wednesday I travelled back to Norway and yesterday I attended her funeral. It was a hard day, as it most often is with funerals, but at the same time it is good to have such a ceremony where the family gets to getter and tries to comfort each other in the middle of all the sadness. My grandmother was nearing on 80 and was not a young person any more, but still it was such a shock that she was to leave us all so sudden. But grandmother also loved life, she loved to have fun and she loved to travel. Because of this I’m sure that she would approve of my decision to go back to Gran Canaria, on Monday, and enjoy a bit more of sun and warmth for the remaining 10 days of the original 3 week holiday. And I will get to spend some time with family down there as well, as my parents and my mum’s two sisters with their husbands also will be there.
While I’ve been back in Norway I’ve got some more feedback from various directions on book number 1 of the Sword Woman’s kin. Quite a few of them are actually quite good, but some are not that good. These are things you have to be prepared for as a writer. I’m quite sure that there is no book written in the entire world that all readers like. I know I’ve read books that have won prizes where I could not understand at all why, and I’ve read books that have been slaughtered by critics and others that I’ve loved. All you can hope for as a writer is that at least some readers will find in interesting and entertaining to read what you write. Still, it is strange, how we as humans so often see past the good stuff and focuses on the bad. I have had many more positive feedbacks than bad on my book, and still it is the bad ones that keep gnawing on me. I can’t seem to push them out of my mind. Hopefully there will be something to learn from this: some of the negative critic I take to heart, and other I just see past because I just don’t agree. And this is what writing has to be: I write to entertain, but I can’t always change my story to meet with the negative critic that I get, because then it would no longer be my story, and then someone else should write it instead of me. When you write you have to have the courage to show the story that you’ve come to love so much yourself to the world, and accept that there will be people who won’t like it as well – but still be confident that as long as you feel that it truly is your story, that you’ve done a good job – then you’ve done as good as you can.
And this was the very long blog post of today, from Solør, where I will spend another couple of days in my “cave”, editing book number 8, before once again returning to the sun and warmth on Gran Canaria.
While I’ve been back in Norway I’ve got some more feedback from various directions on book number 1 of the Sword Woman’s kin. Quite a few of them are actually quite good, but some are not that good. These are things you have to be prepared for as a writer. I’m quite sure that there is no book written in the entire world that all readers like. I know I’ve read books that have won prizes where I could not understand at all why, and I’ve read books that have been slaughtered by critics and others that I’ve loved. All you can hope for as a writer is that at least some readers will find in interesting and entertaining to read what you write. Still, it is strange, how we as humans so often see past the good stuff and focuses on the bad. I have had many more positive feedbacks than bad on my book, and still it is the bad ones that keep gnawing on me. I can’t seem to push them out of my mind. Hopefully there will be something to learn from this: some of the negative critic I take to heart, and other I just see past because I just don’t agree. And this is what writing has to be: I write to entertain, but I can’t always change my story to meet with the negative critic that I get, because then it would no longer be my story, and then someone else should write it instead of me. When you write you have to have the courage to show the story that you’ve come to love so much yourself to the world, and accept that there will be people who won’t like it as well – but still be confident that as long as you feel that it truly is your story, that you’ve done a good job – then you’ve done as good as you can.
And this was the very long blog post of today, from Solør, where I will spend another couple of days in my “cave”, editing book number 8, before once again returning to the sun and warmth on Gran Canaria.
posted by Lena M Bakke @ 1:11 PM
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