Swimming in a sea of sharks

This is how it feels sometimes to be an independent in whatever you do. I'm not saying you should fear the sharks, but don't allow them be the reason you never jump into the waters of independent publishing. We all want to be recognised for our talent, and skill, and much like the shark you must keep moving. Swimming about all day and all night to keep up constantly in promotion and exposure of the world you have crafted. One day you become the shark you have feared. Sometimes we need the teeth and the voracity of the shark to survive these cold treacherous waters. However where we fail each other is allowing the slightest amount of blood in the water to send us into a frenzy, and it can be just about anything good or bad that can provoke this.

We need to be tough, and thick skinned but we also need to stop our eyes from rolling back and chomping on the others blindly. It can happen, I have said before that I am not innocent- I have done things which I regret in the past that if I had the chance to do again I'd do things different. I learned to be kinder and more level headed, not to say I don't fall off the wagon every so often. We can all be accused of this because emotions are something we cannot deaden, even if we wish to do so. You have passion being an author and those passions rise up in other areas, it can be a good thing but it can also be a bad thing.

The good:
You show your passion for your art and creations. This in turn will attract people who will be drawn to it because the deeper your passion runs the deeper your work is.

The bad :
You are so deeply fortified into your world that when it is perceived with the slightest rejection you feel it much more deeply. I know- I have felt it and I have had the same thought that the person just didn't understand and it was a miscommunication. It was, it was a miscommunication on my behalf- I expect readers to fully see what I am describing to them. When they fail to see it I chalk it up to them being blind when in fact I have forgotten that not everyone can see what I am saying; it is my communication error. I may have a fit in private, and think the person didn't know what they were talking about! But- they did and they told me what they felt and thought, they do so to be honest so that I will continue to grow as a writer. We learn our lessons if we stop to listen. I have listened to quite a lot of feedback from readers and with each book we carefully attempt to consider what people have said to us, we want to present the best possible product we can. That meant letting the sharp emotional response pass and let constructive criticism sink in and then understand it. I don't bow to the critics, I don't think about how to make myself more commercial; I think about how to improve whilst keeping true to myself. That is the best way in my opinion to deal with it when your passions raise to anger.

I'm not saying let interwebby trolls walk all over you! I'm saying that positive negativity will happen, yes, an oxymoron but you know what I mean. It is your emotional response to it that will make you a shark that keeps swimming or a shark that starts a blood frenzy. Use your passions wisely.

I always have to tell myself that when people correct me, to ignore that first initial heated flush of hurt. They mean it as a way to help me, and it is difficult to deal with mistakes but remember when you learn from it you don't repeat it. In my night job I get barked at on occasion for something. I accept that I have erred and I learned from it. My manager is only pointing out the error so I can be a better employee. I can't take it to heart because at the end of the day he knows what he is talking about and he has taken the time to teach me something. Everything in life is a learning experience.

Aubrey