One Professional’s Attitude toward Critics
Me, I am pleasantly surprised and very pleased that any reviewer, even a harsh one, reads one of my humble books at all. He could have spent that same money on beer, or the same free time watching reruns on the telly. He picked my book instead.
That is a compliment to my writing, and one I accept with humble gratitude. A hard critic will also did me the even greater honor of liking the book well enough to see and think about its shortcomings, which means, in other words, he took the book seriously.
On the other hand, when a reviewer makes comment about me, whom he has not read, as opposed to comments about my book, which he has read, I must smother a yawn of boredom.
It is not that I am too proud to accept personal criticism, nor that I am too humble: It is just that, from my point of view, I am not a sufficiently interesting topic to hold my attention.
I would frankly rather hear the opinions of random stranger about beekeeping, or kayaking, or Hindu archery practice, quantum mechanics, or professional boomerang semifinals or practically any other topic I know nothing about. Even the most boring topic on earth is interesting if a speaker is passionate and well informed.
But if the subject is one where I know the speaker has but a few flimsy and bigoted conclusions based on nothing but hearsay? Phooey, I say.
When strangers complain about me to me, they are inevitably talking entirely about themselves, and saying nothing about me. The stranger is merely using Strawman-Wright as a convenient trash receptacle to throw away left-overs from a frustrating conversation he never finished with his father, or his older brother, or some other high figure he regrets not being able to wound.
Boss yells at father; father yells at wife; she yells at child; child kicks dog; dog in fury goes to the keyboard and types up a furious denunciation of me to post to the internet. You see how it works.
You have to feel sorry for a dog, if anonymous conservative science fiction writers are his only outlet safe to pretend to abuse.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
