Quote

Be kind and considerate with your criticism... It's just as hard to write a bad book as it is to write a good book.

I am not a self-help writer. I am a self-problem writer. When people read my books, I provoke some things. I cannot justify my work. I do my work; it is up to them to classify it, to judge.

When you're a writer, you hear your internal critic, and that's really hard to get over. And then sometimes you hear critiques from classmates and stuff. But when a book comes out, it's just hundreds of opinions and you have to learn to separate out the ones you want to listen to or figure out many you want to listen to.

I have to expose myself and then accept the judgment that audiences and critics will have. And that's okay. I appreciate the elliptical nature of it. Sometimes people are more in the mood to be nice to me than others, and that's great.

I've probably put up with more criticism than a lot of people out there. At the end of the day, you block out everything, especially with your personal life.

In a way, a certain amount of self-criticism is a good thing, because it keeps you humble. Realizing that no matter what success you've achieved, you can still make enemies makes you humble, too.

If I don't like someone and I start reading their stuff, it seems like my brain will just automatically start criticizing everything that's there. It's really hard to read a book without having all this outside information telling you what to think about it.

Opening myself to criticism was a big door to go through. You can be afraid about something your whole life, about being out in public where people know your name but not you, and it can cripple your ability to try new things.

I always appreciate people's opinions, but sometimes I have to take a step back and remember why I'm writing and what I want to do with it. Shutting out the voices is difficult but it's been good for me.