It’s not just you, it’s everyone at Tobias Buckell Online

Journal Entry

It’s not just you, it’s everyone

Last night I watched Bruce Springsteen on the Daily Show talk about going out to play songs he was passionate about during the Bush years and being soundly booed *by the very people who loved his work enough to pay to come to listen to him.*

It struck me as interesting that even at the peak of a career he has to have the self confidence to produce the art he wants to produce and still stand up and receive that complicated mix of praise and negativity.

Not everyone will like what you do no matter what.

Last week I talked to a couple hundred freshmen about being a writer and one of the teachers asked how I handled negative reviews.

My response: “they are always gonna be haterz out there, you just to have keep on doing what you’re doing and try not to let them get you down.”

I was certainly incredibly cheered to find out Bruce faces the same sort of stuff, oddly enough.

Filed under the topic Journal on March 25th 2009 at 3:55 pm. You can subscribe to the RSS feed for this entry to keep track of comments. You can also use to trackback.

Comment policy: this is Tobias' blog and space. Like a guest in his house, accord other guests and your host respect and polite discourse while feeling free to engage in debate or comment. Failure to do so results in comment ban or deletion.

5 Responses so far

1. K on Mar 25th, 2009 at 4:08 pm

My very first review was in the NY Times and they weren’t kind. After that everything else is a cake walk. I think my personality helps in that I’ve never been one to get depressed over bad reviews on my work for more than a day or two. Ultimately it comes down to what you love doing and not other people’s opinions. I try not to live my life by what other people think of me… that’s a road to nowhere. Just sleep with a clear conscience and you’re good to go.

Anyway, who would dare write anything bad about you? Shame on them.
2. Tara Maya on Mar 25th, 2009 at 5:47 pm

It’s both encouraging and discouraging. On the one hand, even folks at the top of the game still receive negative feedback. On the other hand, this means there’s never a plateau you can reach where you’re immune to this stuff.
3. Adam Heine on Mar 25th, 2009 at 10:43 pm

I like how, in a verbal response, you pronounced haters with a ‘z’.
4. AliceB on Mar 26th, 2009 at 2:36 pm

Thank you. It’s good to be reminded.
5. tobias buckell on Mar 26th, 2009 at 5:04 pm

Thanks K!

Adam: yeah, well, that’s how I roll and all

Your host:

Tobias is a Caribbean-born SF/F novelist who lives in Ohio.

Contact me:

tobias@tobiasbuckell.com
AIM: tobiasbuckell

Latest Comments

JMG8 on SF Author Peter Watts beaten and imprisoned at border crossing (10)
Rob Darnell on Daily slogging (7)
Brad R. Torgersen on Writing neepery: short story pay! (12)
Ken McConnell on Where things stand: what I’m writing (2)
DPBob on Dreads (23)

Popular this month

In the ER
Repeat
Introducing...
Caption contest: Pat Rothfuss in cat ears
Diversity in science fiction markets

Twitter feed

I just gave my RSS reading list a dramatic and quite serious haircut. By like 80%! 8 hrs ago

RT @msagara Authors: We sell more books in the store if one of us hates the book and one adores it. Bad reviews don't kill your career. 16 hrs ago

RT @gregvaneekhout @realjohngreen explains why the free market values eyelashes more than a malaria cure, & what do http://bit.ly/72fNaN 16 hrs ago

Okay, thinking about acceleration and deceleration as part of the travel equation is a bit, but there's an app for that: http://tr.im/HMV5 22 hrs ago

Now I go & write a scene set in the shadow of Jupiter, where the alien starship kicks in FTL. After this, realism is tossed out the window! 23 hrs ago