Dealing with Praise

I often write about criticism. Whether to listen to it or ignore it. How to manage the anger it elicits. How to get past it.

It never occurred to me that praise is also difficult to handle—not until recently, when I found myself caught up in a whirlwind of emotions brought on by some heady and gratifying remarks from an editor.

For the first time, I realized that praise, like criticism, is a complicated thing. It can stimulate your writing or dampen it. It can make you happy, sad, or frightened. Dealing with positive comments is just as important as handling negative ones.

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Here’s how it happened: This was “supposed” to be the year my young-adult fantasy novel, Severed, was published. The novel was the work of many years and scores of revisions. It was, I believed, the best work I could do. Everyone thought it was going to sell. Not just my friends, but professionals—writers, editors, my agent. Again and again, I was told, This will be snapped up!

It wasn’t. After months of work, my agent gave up. “Once in awhile I get a book I’m positive is going to sell, and it doesn’t,” she said. “This year, that book was yours.”

I was surprised at the depth of my grief. Without a contract with a major publisher, my options seemed grim. A small publisher with a teensy budget. Self publication. Neither of those routes have gone well for my friends. Still, not publishing at all was worse. I was tormented by morbid thoughts: When I die, this book will be scrubbed off my hard drive, never be read by anyone. Ever.

At one point, it struck me that I’d never felt sadder than I did over this book.

Mingled with my grief was confusion. Why did so many people love Severed? How could the novel garner so much praise from so many people, and then fail to get any interest on the marketplace? Did it have some fatal flaw? More than anything, I wanted the answer to that question.

At last, I decided to take one final stab at discovering what was and was not working in Severed. I located another editor—one who had a single quality my other readers didn’t: a specialization in YA fantasy. I knew that, with her years of experience in this specific genre, she would have insights that eluded others. It was too late to find a major publisher for the book, but at least it could give me some understanding, some closure. It would help me do things differently next time. I signed a contract, sent off my book, and waited eagerly for the response.

When it came, it bowled me over. “Oh my goodness, Jill!” the editor wrote. “Where did you come from? I can’t remember the last time I was this absorbed in a draft of a novel!” She praised my plot, my world-building, my characters, and my style. She said she’d never read anything like Severed. She wrote: “Wow.”

There was a lot more, almost all of it positive—including an answer to the question that was plaguing me. Why didn’t my novel get published? According to this editor, it was too new, too original, too unique, too strange. Publishing houses are risk-averse. My novel is fresh, but it’s also odd. That oddness is probably what pushed publishers away.

To hear my work described in this way—especially after so many disappointments—was overwhelming. I went through a series of “emotion tsunamis”.

1. Euphoria. For 48 hours, I was elated. I sent quotes from the editor to my closest friends—the same friends who had patiently listened to months of mournful laments. I repeated the editor’s words in my head again and again. I thought to myself, I rock! I was floating.

2. Frustration. Next, I sank. Like the false “joy” of a drug high, my euphoria deflated. My sadness crept back. So I have a good novel, I thought. It’s still not published. What good is it to write something wonderful if no one is going to read it? I was on the edge of grief again, so soon.

3. Anxiety. You’d think that getting such high praise would make me confident. Instead, I found myself fearful. What if Severed is the best novel I ever write? What if my creative mojo is tapped out?

4. Doubt. I soon began to wonder if this editor weren’t simply wrong. If my novel were really as good as she said, surely it would have gotten picked up. It’s too strange? Plenty of strange, work gets published! It was as if I simply couldn’t admit to myself that I’d actually written something good.

5. Renewal. Finally, I reached an equilibrium. My various emotions didn’t dissolve, but they quieted. I decided to relax, to accept this editor’s praise and enjoy it. And I knew what I needed to do: move forward.

I am delighted to have my novel validated in some way. I’m still sad as hell that it didn’t get published by a major publisher. But the most important thing is that I know I can keep going. I can rise above this disappointment. I can keep writing. This is all any writer can say.

How do you deal with praise? Has it ever left you feeling anxious and frustrated rather than relieved and joyful? Share your experiences!