• Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • TikTok
  • Tumblr
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Tahlia Newland

Editor, Author & Artist

  • Editing Services
  • Me & My Creative Life
    • My Books
      • Metaphysical Fiction
    • My Poetry
    • My Masks
    • My Hats
    • Permaculture, Forest & Garden
    • Performing Arts
  • Blog
  • Contact

OMG! My Book is Terrible!

August 18, 2018 by Tahlia Newland

Writing a novel? Feeling overwhelmed? Get new insight and inspiration with my FREE Novel Revision Checklist.
DOWNLOAD IT NOW.
You’ll also get weekly articles on writing sent to your inbox.


I remember the moment I handed the manuscript of my first book over to my husband for his feedback. I asked him to give me the truth while hoping he’d like it and only say nice things. But that would have been too easy!

I hovered as he read it, watching his face for any expression. My heart leapt when he laughed and plummeted when he frowned. I kept wanting to ask him what he thought of it, but I was scared to because he said nothing –  not a single thing as he read through. I knew then that the feedback wouldn’t be good. I was right. The best thing he said was, “Well, I finished it.”

‘OMG,’ I thought, ‘my book is really terrible.”

And I felt really terrible. All that work, hours and hours of it! My disappointment felt pretty crushing, and yet, I’d never really thought that it would be all good feedback. I hadn’t thought it would be quite so bad though, either.

Writing a book isn’t easy, and the first one is the hardest. We are not going to get everything right the first go, and we need the help of others to pinpoint the changes we need to make, so we have to ask for feedback and be prepared hear the worst, and maybe feel pretty bad about it.

Feeling bad is natural when you get feedback that makes you think your book sucks, but your sense of failure isn’t what’s important, what’s important is how you handle it. Do we let the sense that we’ve failed take us down to a place from which we will never return, down to the dark depths of murky forest pool, or do we get ourselves up from the ground and carry on? If you want to be an author, you need to build resiliance, so you can not only rise above your sense of failure but also use it as a springboard to rise to greater heights.

That’s what I did.

As my husband wondered just what he could say about it to be most helpful, I realised that what I really wanted to know was whether or not the book was worth working on further, and even after he told me everything that was wrong with it, he did say it was worth carrying on with.  I took that sliver of hope and worked on – for another three years – and eventually I succeeded in creating a quality book which has won two awards and been published by a US publisher.

That first lot of feedback wasn’t the last time I felt terrible about the book either, and I had 3 more books in the series, each with their own issues, but by the time I got to my 4th book, Eternal Destiny, I’d learned a lot and the writing process was a great deal easier. (I still love that book the best out of the series.)

I learned so much from my initial failure that these days I help authors to not make the same mistakes I did, and perhaps the most important piece of advice I can give is: after a fall, bounce back up and keep writing. Practice really does make it perfect.

Watch this video for inspiration.

I love this video, not just because of the man’s skill on the rope but also because of the visual meaning. This is visual theatre (the field I worked in before becoming a teacher, then author, then editor and publisher) where the imagery communicates on a level beyond words. Here, the man falls, but then he turns his falling into something beautiful and joyful before continuing on his path. It’s a wonderful analogy ( I love analogies – my books are full of them) of how we can use our falls to grow, how we can play with them rather than let them overwhelm us and drop us into a murky pool. And the violinist can be seen as the man’s soul, or psyche, or true self, or creativity, whatever you want to call that part of yourself that urges you to develop your full potential, the part that calls to you, encouraging you to drop what obscures it and manifest your greatness.

Clearly we can’t all bounce around on an elastic rope like this guy, but we can bounce back from our defeats, especially if we let the music of our true nature guide us, and that’s the point this video is making.

The trick is to see the fall in a positive light and find a way to turn it around so you can grow from the experience.

The following points relate not just to writing, but to everything in our life.

You can:

  • learn from the fall – note what went wrong and decide how you will avoid the situation in future. Ask yourself what is the learning for you in the experience;
  • see it from a different angle – perhaps it isn’t as bad as you think. Look for something positive and you will find it, even if it is just that you might be able to avoid a similar fall next time;
  • remind yourself that you won’t always be feeling down; the down feeling will pass – right now it’s probably overwhelming, and you feel that it will always be that way, but all feelings pass eventually, and you will be able to move on.
  • maybe find some way to salvage the situation, to remedy it to some extent.
  • not dwell on it – the more we think about something, the more we stir up the feelings and keep them rising again and again. Make an effort not to go back there, to wherever the fall happened. Sure, contemplate on what went wrong as in point one, but then let it go. Tell yourself you’re moving on.
  • treat it with a sense of humour – this is our best ally for bouncing back and keeping ourself out of the water of misery. I don’t necessarily mean laughing at something – though that is appropriate sometimes –  I mean a light-hearted approach to life where you accept that falling is part of the deal of being human. It’s an ‘oh-look-at-what-life-has-thrown-at-me-now’ attitude, an attitude of curiosity and humour. When everything is going so wrong that you can’t believe it’s all happening to you,  see the bizarre nature of it. That all this has come together and fallen on you now is bizarre, so bizarre that you can either cry or laugh. Choose to laugh.

Have you ever felt that maybe a book you write was terrible? How did you move on from that? Do you have any other strategies for bouncing back when you’re feeling down after a fall?


This is part of a series of blog posts on how to write a novel. It doesn’t just cover the technical details, but also the emotional journey we take and the personal challenges we meet on the road from potential author to author. Join the journey now, and don’t miss a post, click here to sign up to get my Novel Revision Checklist and links to the articles sent to your inbox.

If you’re an author check out my editing services.

You’ll also find my book on writing, The Elements of Active Prose: Writing Tips to Make Your Prose Shine, very helpful.

If you like stories with action, romance and a contemplative element, you’ll enjoy my fiction, so take a look in my bookshop before you go.

You can also follow me on all sorts of social media by clicking the buttons at the top of my website.

 

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: How to handle criticism, The writing, editing & publishing process, Writing tips Tagged With: writing advice

« How to Deal with Criticism of Your Book
What Does Book Editing Involve? »

Comments

  1. millicent hughes says

    August 25, 2018 at 7:16 pm

    At a seminar for SCBWI, an author once confided to our small group that the previous year she had run out of the seminar at 10 AM on morning one because her critique had not gone well. Then she had cried for an entire day. We older women just exchanged unbelieving glances. Dissecting it later, we decided that she took the criticism as negative response to her as a person, because the book had been the child of her mind and persona. You just can’t look at it that way. It’s no different than having a recipe fail. Yes, you did it, but that casserole does not represent your entire creative life!

    • Tahlia Newland says

      August 26, 2018 at 4:01 pm

      Well said. And it isn’t you as a person. As people we are much more than our art.

Search

Recent Posts

  • Fantasy Book Review: The High Priestess by Val Tobin
  • Book Genres – What you Need to Know.
  • How to See Edits in Word Documents
  • Finding an Editor You Can Trust
  • Review of ‘The Guild Codex Spellbound Series’ by Annette Marie

View Posts by Category

Writing a novel? Feeling overwhelmed? Get new insight and inspiration with my FREE Novel Revision Checklist. 

DOWNLOAD  NOW

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Free Book Download  
Get Lethal Inheritance free when you sign up to my new release email list.  I won’t share your details and you can unsubscribe at any time.

My Latest Books

  • Fallout: Recovering from Abuse in Tibetan Buddhism
  • The Elements of Active Prose: Writing Tips to Make Your Prose Shine
  • The Locksmith's Secret
    Rated 5.00 out of 5

Alliance of Independent Authors

Alliance of Independent Authors

Click HERE to see all my books.

Books
Reviews, Writing, Cats & Contemplation
Editing

Click HERE to subscribe to my newsletter and get my fantasy novel Lethal Inheritance FREE. 

How to Meditate – the crucial points

See more

Hi I’m Tahlia Newland

I can help you express yourself and share your story with the world.

 

Do you want to write a really good story and have it professionally polished and published?

As an editor, I help you be the best writer you can possibly be. I strengthen your voice, support your vision and can assist you all the way to publication.

On my blog you’ll find book reviews, writer’s tips, contemplative articles on meditation and working with your mind, and occaisonally pictures of my Burmese cats.

If you’re interested mostly in my contemplative articles then  Sign up to the Living in Peace & Clarity Newsletter to get those articles delivered by email. And check out the resources on my Living in Peace and Clarity Page.

I do a lot of community work involving blogging and general support for Buddhist students processing revelations of abuse in their spiritual communities.  Please consider supporting me to continue this work.

Occiasonally, when inspired and not too busy with community work, I make masks.

All my books are

Visit my Mask & Steampunk Accessories Shop

2015-03-19 15.46.12
Blue Burmese
Like cats in stories? Check out my books. And click the photo to read the cat colomn.

Click Here for More Articles in This Series

Book reviews – sci fi, fantasy, literary fiction, Buddhist fiction and related non-fiction

Fantasy Book Review: The High Priestess by Val Tobin

Fantasy Book Review: The High Priestess by Val Tobin

The High Priestess: Persephone’s Return is the third book in Val Tobin’s Tales from the Unmasqued World Series, and in it she deepens and expands the stories from the previous two book. The book has two central story arcs based around characters we’ve met before. One arc follows Kelsey (a human) who is with Josh […]

More Posts from this Category

My gorgeous Burmese cats

Renovated Website & Cute Cat Series

Renovated Website & Cute Cat Series

Yesterday I did a photoshoot for my renovated website. Take a look around, particulary at the home page (Click on my name at the top to go there). It’s designed for editing clients with my books secondary because I need to focus on the part of this publishing business that actually earns me more than […]

More Posts from this Category

Seven of my novels have an Awesome Indies Seal of Excellence

Four of my books earned BRAG Medallions

I abide by the ethical author code

I'm an Ethical Author
Alliance of Independent Authors

Copyright

All material on this website is under copyright to Tahlia Newland and cannot be shared without written permission.

  • Editing Services
  • About Me
  • My Books
  • My Masks
  • Blog
  • Contact

Copyright © 2023 · Amoré Theme by Oh, Hello Designs on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

FREE Novel Revision Checklist

Written a book? Need some help reviewing and revising it? Download my Novel Revision Checklist for step by step guidance.  

DOWNLOAD NOW

no thanks

{"cookieName":"wBounce","isAggressive":false,"isSitewide":true,"hesitation":"120","openAnimation":false,"exitAnimation":false,"timer":"","sensitivity":"","cookieExpire":"7","cookieDomain":"","autoFire":"","isAnalyticsEnabled":false}

Please note: I am closed for holidays from Christmas day until Jan 30th 2023. Dismiss

 

Loading Comments...