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To the best of my knowledge, there are only three ways to handle negative criticism.
First, a writer may seek to learn something from the negative criticism so as to make some big changes. This option works especially well for young writers, self-published writers, and independent writers perhaps just starting out.
Second, a writer may choose to ignore the negative criticism. He or she may consider the source and deem the source to be something less than reliable. This type of writer will often feed off the negative criticism and let it inspire said writer to persevere in an almost spiteful manner.
I believe that there is third way to handle negative criticism, and it seems to me that this third way is the best way of all. The third way does not involve learning from the critique nor resisting it. The third way simply obliges the author to remain faithful to his or her muse or inspiration. The third way requires a great leap of faith on the part of the writer or artist or musician. The creator understands that many pan his or her efforts, yet the creator continues with more or less peace of mind—and is not at all spiteful or bitter. The writer who chooses the third way simply remains faithful to the impulses that drive his or her work. The writer who chooses the third way does not necessarily blame the self for the negative or mixed reviews. Often, the writer who chooses the third way does so because said writer feels that God and/or biotic evolution and/or the force of destiny has chosen the maligned individual to do the precise kind of subversive work that many readers reject. Perhaps, too, the writer who chooses the third way holds out hope that someday society will come to judge the work differently. In that sense, the rejected writer does not die in misery. Indeed, the rejected writer may very well die whilst devoted to an unshakeable faith.
In this trio of novellas, three game young ladies enter into dangerous liaisons that test each one’s limits and force them to confront the most heartrending issues facing society in the early twentieth century. The Phantom Glare of Day tells of Sophie, a young lady who has lived a sheltered life and consequently has no idea how cruel public-school bullying can be. When she meets Jarvis, a young man obsessed with avenging all those students who delight in his daily debasement, she resolves to intervene before tragedy unfolds. Mouvements Perpétuels tells of Cäcilia, a young lady shunned by her birth father. She longs for the approval of an older man, so when her ice-skating instructor attempts to take advantage of her, she cannot resist. Not a month later, she realizes that she is pregnant and must decide whether or not to get an abortion. Passion Bearer tells of Manon, a young lady who falls in love with a beautiful actress after taking a post as a script girl for a film company—and is subsequently confronted with the pettiest kinds of homophobia.
Read an Excerpt
London, 29 September, 1917
In the dead of the night, Manon returned to her hotel suite and lay down in bed. Please, no more nightmares.
At dawn, she had a terrible dream.
A long, plump, phallic, pulsating Zeppelin approaches the city.
Like every other tenant, she exits Chelsea Court Hotel. Alas, as she races past one of the refuge islands rising above the thoroughfare, she trips and falls.
From all directions, meanwhile, various artillery units open fire—and the terrific cacophony of battle roars and blasts and rumbles and bawls.
As the shell-shocked crowds rush down into the neighboring tube station, a lady beggar approaches. “Stay where you are,” the wretched woman tells her. “It’d be your destiny to perish during a tribulation such as this.”
In time, a fragment of what looks to be the Zeppelin’s rudder plummets into the park not thirty feet from the place where Manon stands.
And now she looks up to find that a torrent of flames has engulfed the airship’s nose.
As the doomed Zeppelin drifts this way and that, the bittersweet-orange blaze spreads down the length of the passenger gondola.
With an awful hiss, the airship’s carcass descends toward her and then . . .
She awoke from the dream, quite certain that she must be tangled up in the gondola’s guy-ropes. Blinded by the morning light, she thrashed about.
Ultimately, she fell out of bed. How to go on living here?
At one o’clock, when she arrived at the offices of the London Moving-Pictures Company down on Coronation Avenue, she paused before the reeded-glass doors and debated whether she ought to resign her post. Why not go home to Manchester?
A dark presence rolled through the sky. Could it be a Zeppelin passing by overhead, the bomb bay slowly opening?
The darkness proved to be nothing more than a large skein of geese, but even so, she felt positively frantic—and now she continued through the door. Hopefully, the hall porter would be willing to tell Mr. Pomeroy that she had decided to back out. If so, she could be on her way before the production manager had even had a chance to protest.
About the Author:
M. Laszlo has lived and worked all over the world, and he has kept exhaustive journals and idea books corresponding to each location and post.
It is said that the maniacal habit began in childhood during summer vacations—when his family began renting out Robert Lowell’s family home in Castine, Maine.
The habit continued in 1985 when, as an adolescent, he spent the summer in London, England. In recent years, he revisited that journal/idea book and based his first work, The Phantom Glare of Day, on the characters, topics, and themes contained within the youthful writings. In crafting the narrative arcs, he decided to divide the work into three interrelated novellas and to set each one in the WW-I era so as to make the work as timeless as possible.
M. Laszlo has lived and worked in New York City, East Jerusalem, and several other cities around the world. While living in the Middle East, he worked for Harvard University’s Semitic Museum. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Hiram College in Hiram, Ohio and an M.F.A. in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York.
His next work is forthcoming from SparkPress in 2024. There are whispers that the work purports to be a genuine attempt at positing an explanation for the riddle of the universe and is based on journals and idea books made while completing his M.F.A at Sarah Lawrence College.
https://www.amazon.com/M-Laszlo/e/B09PGPTWQ5/ref=aufs_dp_fta_dsk
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Sounds like a great read.
ReplyDeleteSounds like an interesting book.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your guest post. Did it take you a long time to come to those realizations?
ReplyDeleteYes, a long time. Youth is always wasted on the young.
DeleteThe book sounds very intriguing. Great cover!
ReplyDelete