The Blessed is on tour this week, visiting reviewers’ blogs in lots of places. I’m here at home, watching from afar and hoping the reviewers will like Lacey’s story. It’s always interesting reading those first reviews, but that’s all it can be – interesting. A writer doesn’t want to invest too much energy in tracking reviews. Good or bad. Some writers don’t read reviews at all. I do. I can’t seem to help myself. I want to know what people think when they read my stories. But then I say “great” when the reviewer likes my story and sigh and say “too bad, but oh well” when a reviewer is not enamored with my plot line or characters. It’s fun to get those “must read” or “can’t put it down” or “a recommended read.” It’s not as much fun to get the negative comments, but at the same time, while you certainly hope everybody in the whole wide world will love your book, that’s probably not going to happen.
Sometimes you’re wondering if the reviewers really read your book since in their reviews they get the characters’ names wrong or totally miss all your beautiful scenes. Or you think maybe they had a stomach bug or a headache or their teenagers were throwing fits while they were reading. You never think that when they say good things. Oh no, then you think they are wise and intuitive and know exactly what they’re talking about. Especially if they color in all those stars on the review pages.
I once printed up a page of blurbs from reviews of my novel, The Scent of Lilacs and was using it to try to convince a reader to give my book a try. The savvy lady handed it back to me without reading the first line and said, “You wouldn’t have put anything bad on there.” And she was right.
So The Blessed is out there making the rounds and getting read. But you know, whatever the reviews, I’ve turned that story loose. I can’t do any more to it now. I told Lacey’s and Isaac’s stories as best I could and then I moved on. I’ve got a whole new bunch of characters now. A new story to tell. And I’m trying to tell it in such a way that someday it will be out there making the rounds in blogosphere world.
I was a guest on Divine Detours yesterday. Kathy Harris has come up with a great idea for a blog and asks those she interviews if we’ve ever found ourselves sidetracked from the path we planned to take. Oh, and she’s a dog lover too, so she asks about my dogs. That was a fun question to answer. But I also liked thinking about my divine detours that have brought me to an unplanned or unexpected destination that turned out to be a better place. Maybe I’ll tell you about some of those detours in a future post.
Meanwhile I’ll enjoy going blogging with The Blessed. Hope you’re enjoying your week too. I sent out a newsletter today. If you’re not on my newsletter list, you can sign up from my website. Ann’s website
Happy reading! Hope you’re enjoying the heart of summer.