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The Growth Mindset of a Writer
How to prepare yourself for the emotional roller coaster of sharing your work and receiving criticism
Anyone who follows any social media with writers or authors in it knows that the author ego is fragile. Impostor syndrome looms large at the most inappropriate and unexpected of places. It is a constant struggle not to feel like you couldn’t write yourself out of a paper bag.
On top of all of this internal pressure is external pressure. Beta readers, ARCs, and finally, readers are vying to take you down with their seemingly small comments that destroy your fragile ego, or (hopefully not) their scathing comments on how your book is the worst of the lot.
Navigating this emotional minefield is akin to walking on legos to get to the chocolate bar on the other side of room. I should know; I had a particularly brutal introduction to people I didn’t know reading my book. This article sets out to show you how not to do it and how to prepare yourself mentally and emotionally for the upcoming bombs about to blow up in your face.
In other words, don’t be me. Or be the me that turned it around, but be that me version right from the start.
Beta reading train wreck
Before diving into the discussion, I wanted to give you the full-flavored version of my instantaneous and unfortunate emotional road to despair from beta reading commentary.
I was writing my first novel, The Deep Space Between. It was going well. My editor had good things to say, although critical, and I was making changes. In short, while I knew it wasn’t amazing, I thought the story was okay.
I’m also a development editor and a former copy-editor. I believe my ability to write well-constructed sentences to be slightly above average, but not in the superstar category.
Back to my story. An already published author in a Facebook group threw out the need for beta readers on his book, which was in the same genre as mine. Seizing the moment before I thought too hard about it, I said I could do it, but would he be up for a swap? He was. Awesome. An author in my genre whom I didn’t know would be reviewing my book. It was daunting but a good step…
