Authors come in all sizes, shapes, and colors. We write tough, soft, humorous, horrifying, and thrilling. Our styles reach from lean prose to the profuse. Our voices strike all tones and notes. The one thing we all have in common is the need for our work to be liked, enjoyed, praised, loved. It's no secret we can be a vulnerable lot often consumed with self-doubt and dread of failure. Oddly enough the main way those feelings can be dispelled is for strangers to exalt us.
The writing community is clique-ish. Like-minded souls bonding. Authors from certain publishing houses banding together. Lovers of genres forming groups to encourage and bolster one another.
Let's not forget the need to extol the virtues of a favorite writer. Readers who don't write books – and some who do – can forget how much a simple word of praise for another's novel can propel another reader to try it. A recommendation from a published author can go a long way in convincing another reader to pick up a copy of an author with whom they're unfamiliar. And what it does for the author is immeasurable.
Established authors, don't forget how much you needed that special affirmation that, yes, you are indeed a talented scribe. If you can, read one unpublished author's work a year just because. Hopefully, somebody gave you that time, that urging to continue.
And although time is scarce enough, your harried writing life interferes with all kinds of other things, there's an author out there with the same schedules to keep struggling to find some other professional who will read their work, published or unpublished, and give them valuable feedback. Not criticism, not condescension, not "it would've been better if . . .", but rather, hey, there's some good stuff in there even though I don't read your genre - or something like that. Virtually anything positive is a blessing.
Remember what you needed the most . . . and return it to another.
Lord, help me to be kind, truthful, forgiving, and helpful. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.
