(btw, I love that Mr. Kake reads your blog! Mr. Mel doesn’t…unless he’s the topic) LOL

Just to prove I do read ur blog, even from Beijing China!

See u soon

Mr Kate X

Negative reviews are no picnic either. You can have nothing but glorious 5-star reviews and then that one crappy one. And, by nature, that’s the one we tend to focus on. It’s all a part of the quirky career we’ve chosen. A writer’s life is riddled with so many ups and downs that it sometimes feels like our emotions are riding a never-ending roller coaster. If we creative people are to survive and thrive, we must find ways to keep our fragile egos in balance and feed ourselves with plenty of positives and lots of laughter–and distance ourselves from doomsayers and negative people because they’re poison.

Since I write romantic comedy, I know from the get-go that not every one is going to get it. What’s funny to one isn’t necessarily humorous to another. What has one reader laughing out loud will have another scratching her head in wonder. But I understand this. I really do. And so I do my best to remember this when a reviewer writes one of those scratching head kind of reviews…after I shed a tear or two. LOL

There’s a distinct bright and shining upside to all of this, Kate. We writers are blessed with those magnificently jubilant periods when it seems that everyone LOVES something we’ve written and all is well with the world. The editor eagerly snatches it up for publication, readers send us glowing fan mail, chat lists are rife with “you-simply-MUST-read-this” type of chatter about our book, and reviewers sing our praises to high heaven. It’s a monumental high that, at least for me, outshines all the down times of being a writer.

And about giving up? Hah! Forget about it, Kate. We’re writers, and that means it’s our nature to write. We can’t NOT write. Whether we do it for publication or pen words meant for our eyes only, for our own personal satisfaction, write we must. Of all the careers I can imagine (and Lord knows I’ve had a lot of them), I can’t think of anything as ultimately fulfilling as living my dream of being a writer.

Your blog post is a good, insightful one, Kate. As writers we lead necessarily solitary lives and reaching out to other writers via our blogs when we need to talk to someone who can really relate is great therapy. Almost as satisfying as a pound of chocolate.

And I’m REALLY sorry for writing a whole damn book for a comment! Eek!

And surviving 4 kids while Mr. Kate is off to China, that’s amazing.

-k.