when honesty is just plain mean

I'm not one to make waves.  Nor do I like confrontation.  I'm not a woman of many convictions and tend to be easily swayed by other's opinions.  I like to think of it as being open-minded.  BUT I'm often embarrassed that I'm not more opinionated.

HOWEVER,

sometimes opinionated, or rather, judgemental people are just MEAN.  What opinions and beliefs I do have, I tend to keep to myself.  Cowardly, definitely.  The MC in my contemporary YA novel is going through a simliar dilemma.  How to be true to herself by sticking up for herself by being herself.  And just not worrying whether somebody else will disagree or laugh at her or think she's ridiculous or stupid. 

One thing I admire about Taylor Swift is this:  Plenty of people make fun of her.  Her singing isn't good.  She sings off-key.  She's annoying.  BUT it doesn't stop her from being HONEST in her music and her songs.  She's naive and innocent and HONEST.  Her lyrics are from her heart, her real-life experiences and they hold messages for other young girls. 

She inspires me and my writing.  Her music helps my YA themes and protags.

I'm trying not to worry about what other people's opinions of me will be when they read my writing.  EVEN THOUGH IT SCARES THE S**T OUT OF ME. 

One example comes to mind. Stephenie Meyer is a very successful writer who is not at all well-respected.  I think even if I sold millions of copies of my novel and made an equal amount of money through the sale of books and films, I'd want to crawl in a hole and shrivel up if my supportive writing community bashed my writing, characters and story.  As I sit here and write my first two novels and plot a third, I just want them to be on a shelf one day and hope that a few people read them and enjoy them.  I'm sure that's all she hoped for.  I certainly never plan to be the next JK Rowling or Stephen King.  I doubt she did either.  Yet she's constantly compared.  And found waaaay lacking.  So far the writing community online has been AMAZING, but they seem to have turned on her.  Even if MANY writers dislike her writing, and all it consists of, WHY put her down so much? 

I hope by the time my 12th novel is written and stands a chance at an agent my writing will be stellar (and only because you, my writing friends, will have shown me the way) and I won't have to suffer quite the amount of criticism she has.  THAT SAID, I know there will ALWAYS be reviewers who dislike my work, my style, my characters, my pace, etc.  I KNOW harsh criticism will always be a part of my writing future and life in general.  I KNOW writers need to be thick-skinned.  I guess I was just thinking about it the other day and wondered if she wondered why so many people felt compelled to take the criticism of her work to such extremes.

THAT SAID,

I've sat at Mother. Write. Repeat.  (see yesterday's post for link!) for the past few hours and have become ADDICTED to reading the queries.  Critiques of the queries are posted online. I don't even comment because I have little confidence in myself as a critiquer.  I'm learning, though.  I've thoroughly enjoyed reading the queries along with the first pages.  The commenters have been honest and helpful and constructive.  AMAZING, like I said before.  Plus, the take of the agent is interesting!  Sometimes in line with the other commenters, and sometimes not. 

A few things I came a way with:


-There seems to be a new trend in starting a story with an accident of some sort (usually car).


-There are STILL some writers who want to start with that all-too intriguing dream scene.  ;0)


-An MC (especially females) need to be strong, smart, good role models (no damsel in distresses). 


This seems easy, I think, but often enough we may tend to play the weak card in the beginning so our MC can grow into the strong person hiding within them.  BE CAREFUL WITH THIS.  It may really turn an agent off to read weakness in your MC in the first page!  Don't make "weak" the character flaw your MC begins with.

I had totally planned for this to be a short post.  Sorry! (erica interjects - this is great, christy. erica's post tomorrow about mean people will be much worse. Or better. Or different (and completely unrelated). Something. :)