Your critics aren’t in the arena. Ignore them.

Here’s something I’ve learned from decades of publishing.

When you are a writer (or podcaster, or visual artist) with something to say, you will inevitably attract an audience. 

And you will inevitably become a target of critics.

When you express yourself clearly, with conviction and experience and wisdom as your guide, you will inspire readers. But, you will also piss a segment of your audience off. 

The latter are people who recognize something they don’t like about themselves in your words, and through social media are conditioned to think that drive by insults are permissible (because of course, in the real world, they are not). They will troll you, claim their second of “victory,” and then return to their regular diet of YouTube videos and porn.

Ignore them. They are beneath you.

Because you are something they are not. 

You’re a creator.

This is not a call to be aloof, and wear blinders to criticism. Stay alert. Listen to legitimate feedback. You will be wrong from time to time. I’ve been wrong, and made mistakes, many times in my life. Own up to errors; use them to get better.

But, when you write from a place of strength, genuine expression, and your own unique  viewpoint, i.e., a place of Truth, a handful of haters will have a problem with it. Recognize that the problem is in them, not you. Understand that they have work to do on themselves. Ignore them, and if you can find it in your heart, find pity for them. They can’t see their own limitations and pettiness; one day they may. 

But above all, don’t give them the gift of your precious attention. Time is your only irreplaceable resource. Stay on your path. Keep creating.

Here’s a helpful coping strategy: Critics and haters are an inevitable part of the game. They are indicative of success. Despite my annoyances, I like them because it means I’m writing well. 

This is not a call to be an edgelord, to produce antagonistic and needlessly provocative material. But if you don’t piss anyone off, ever, you’re probably doing something wrong.

One of the quotes I return to again and again is Teddy Roosevelt’s Man in the Arena. You probably have heard it before, but if not, here it is:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

I am the man in the arena. I’ve written thousands of newspaper stories, and newsletter and journal articles. Thousands more blog posts, for this blog and a dozen other websites. I’ve written dozens of print essays. And now a book. I’ve hosted and produced hundreds of podcast episodes. Spoken in front of audiences larger than a thousand, for more than a decade. I’ve mentored young writers and editors, and led teams.

And, I’ve been paid well to do it. I earn my living at the keyboard. I’ve won multiple awards.

This is not boasting; these are facts. I am now at the place where I can distinguish cheap attacks from legitimate critiques, because I know far more than just about all my critics. More about my own work, and about what it means to be a professional, then they do.

If you’ve written, or painted, or coded a website, built a house, made anything using your creativity and your heart and soul, you too are that man in the arena. You are a striver and doer of deeds; your critics are the cold, timid souls hurling insults from the sidelines. Never donning the pads and getting dirty in the playing field, where it counts.

Win or lose, you are striving, and your striving is admirable. That makes me your fan. 

My advice to anyone reading this who creates for a living: Keep doing it. You’ve already accomplished more than 90% of the world ever will. Don’t take praise as a sign you are unassailable; stay humble. But likewise, don’t take criticism personally; stay the course. 

If you can do this, you will win.

Joe Lansdale: The art of good writing

Joe Lansdale is one of my favorite authors. He consistently delivers good, tightly-plotted stories, populated with memorable characters, and moments of violence, sometimes shocking, but leavened with a great sense of humor throughout. He keeps you turning the pages, which in and of itself is an art form. He has a inimitable voice that comes through on every page.

Reading "Hyenas" from his collection Hap and Leonard (love those characters, who briefly enjoyed the limelight with a far too quick to be cancelled TV series ) reminded me of how good Lansdale can be. Look at what he does with this opening. You're effortlessly all in with a just a few paragraphs of description.

When I drove over to the nightclub, Leonard was sitting on the curb holding a bloody rag to his head. Two police cruisers were parked just down from where he sat. One of the cops, Jane Bowden, a stout woman with her blonde hair tied back, was standing by Leonard. I knew her a little. She was a friend of my girlfriend, Brett. There was a guy stretched out in the parking lot on his back.

I parked and walked over, glanced at the man on the ground.

He didn't look so good, like a poisoned insect on its way out. His eyes, which could be barely seen through the swelling, were roaming around in his head like maybe they were about to go down a drain. His mouth was bloody, but no bloodier than his nose and cheekbones. He was missing teeth. I knew that because quite a few of them were on his chest, like Chiclets he had spat out. I saw what looked like a chunk of his hair lying near by. The parking lot made the hunk of blond hair appear bronze. He was missing a shoe. I saw it just under one of the cop cars. It was still tied.

I went over and tried not to look too grim or too happy. Truth was I didn't know how to play it, because I didn't know the situation. I didn't know who had started what, and why.

It paints a scene that begs the story to be told. Kudos to Joe.

If you haven't read any of his stuff I recommend you start with his Hap and Leonard stories (Mucho Mojo is a particular favorite of mine) or perhaps his standalone novel The Bottoms. This stuff may not be sword-and-sorcery but it moves like the best of it.

Robert E. Howard in his own words

In honor of what would be his 105th birthday, I thought I’d let Robert E. Howard’s own words do the talking.

Here’s a few of my favorites culled from his Conan, Kull, and Solomon Kane stories. There’s so many to pull from but I chose these because they capture the ferocity, humor, and poetic qualities of Howard’s writing.

If you got any favorite passages to share, post ‘em here.

There comes, even to kings, the time of great weariness. Then the gold of the throne is brass, the silk of the palace becomes drab. The gems in the diadem and upon the fingers of the women sparkle drearily like the ice of the white seas; the speech of men is as the empty rattle of a jester’s bell and the feel comes of things unreal; even the sun is copper in the sky and the breath of the green ocean is no longer fresh.

–"The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune”

To read the rest of this post, visit The Black Gate website.

On Stories: Discovering a kindred spirit in C.S. Lewis

Though he’s best known as the author of the Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) was also a prolific essayist and an ardent defender of fantasy literature. In addition to medieval studies (The Allegory of Love) and Christian apologetics (Mere Christianity), Lewis wrote several essays about the enduring appeal of mythopoeic stories, connecting fantasy’s remote, heroic past to its flowering in the early 20th century.

Lewis’ passion and erudition in the mythopoeic comes pouring through in On Stories and Other Essays on Literature, a collection of essays and reviews loosely tied around fantasy literature. Lewis’ overarching theme in On Stories is that the best mythopoeic/romance literature (which includes works like E.R. Eddison’s The Worm Ouroboros, J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, and H. Rider Haggard’s She) stacks up with the best mainstream literature, and thus deserves to be not only enjoyed, but studied and preserved (I can sense a lot of nodding heads around here, but keep in mind that Lewis wrote these essays in an age when it was heresy to compare fantasy fiction to “real” lit).

To read the rest of this post, visit the Black Gate website .

Over Sea, Under Stone

"You remember the fairy stories you were told when you were very small--'once upon a time . . .' Why do you think they always began like that?"
"Because they weren't true," Simon said promptly.
Jane said, caught up in the unreality of the high remote place, "Because perhaps they were true once, but nobody could remember them."
Great-Uncle Merry turned his head and smiled at her.

--Susan Cooper, Over Sea, Under Stone

On a whim I removed the first book from Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising Sequence, Over Sea, Under Stone, from my bookshelf and started reading. I literally haven't cracked this book in more than 20 years.

I'm always afraid to re-read books that I enjoyed as a child, fearing that I'll either find them poor in retrospect, or that I'll discover I've simply outgrown them and lost my sense of wonder. But 70-odd pages in I've been pleasantly surprised by Over Sea, Under Stone. I'm sure I'll be posting a full review soon.

Quote of the day

From J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit:

As they sang the hobbit felt the love of beautiful things made by hands and by cunning and by magic moving through him, a fierce and jealous love, the desire of the hearts of dwarves. Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick.

I love this quote because it nails the reason why I love (good) fantasy fiction: It elevates your spirit and lifts you above the mundane. A well-told tale can stir the hearts of even the smallest, meekest fellows.

Quote of the day: Tolkien's vision of hope

"Sam struggled with his own weariness, and he took Frodo's hand; and there he sat silent till deep night fell. Then at last, to keep himself awake, he crawled from the hiding-place and looked out. The land seemed full of creaking and cracking and sly noises, but there was no sound of voice or of foot. Far above the Ephel Duath in the West the night-sky was still dim and pale. There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach."

Quote of the day--Lord Dunsany

"And you that sought for magic in your youth but desire it not in your age, know that there is a blindness of spirit which comes from age, more black than the blindness of eye, making a darkness about you across which nothing may be seen, or felt, or known, or in any way apprehended."

--Lord Dunsany, The King of Elfland's Daughter

Why Tolkien is the man

"Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if, when he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison walls? The world outside has not become less real because the prisoner cannot see it."

--J.R.R. Tolkien

Everyone to some degree or another is in "prison." It may be a lousy job, poverty, a bad relationship, an unhappy social life, or the prison that encloses all mankind--frail bodies of flesh, our own mortal coil. Tolkien, a World War I veteran who saw several of his best friends die in the muddy trenches of France, and lived through World War II and the Nazi blitz, knew that as well as anyone.

But why should we put our heads down and accept banal realities? If you don' t like the look of your prison walls, choose another path. There are other worlds to explore. Tolkien didn't like the look of our own world, so he went ahead and created Middle-Earth. Although we cannot "see" this world and the worlds of our imagination with traditional senses, they are no less real than gray prison walls. They live within our minds and hearts, and as long as we pass down great works of art like The Lord of the Rings, are eternal.