Sarah Lotz has shared an article on Pornokitsch that she wrote a few years ago after being on the receiving end of a particularly bad review: “one that’s so vituperative and personal that I’m forced to leave it up to your imagination, in case the bile eats through your wifi connection and melts Google.”
She makes the distinction between critical or negative reviews and hatchet jobs (which have their very own award). In The Independent editor Boyd Tonkin’s words “hatchet jobs” are reviews that aim “to wound, to wreck, to do lasting mischief to the reputation of either a work or else a whole career”.
Lotz is the author of the upcoming novel The Three, as well as Tooth and Nailed, Pompidou Posse and Exhibit A. Lotz also writes books with with her daughter, Savannah, as Lily Herne, and with Louis Greenberg as SL Grey.
“The closest analogy I can come up with is that it feels like someone’s taken out an advert in a newspaper claiming that my child is ugly or stupid. If you care about your writing (and really, there’s no point otherwise) it’s bloody hard not to take it personally,” Lotz writes. She then shares tips for dealing with the “gut-wrenching, self-obsessed angst that results after a hatchet-job”.
I wrote the below ages ago – years ago, actually, and because I am a) a coward and b) the world’s worst blogger, it’s been languishing in my ‘stories and other stuff’ folder. The point of it was to try to articulate, as honestly as possible, what it feels like when you’ve been the recipient of a particularly scathing review (which is bloody hard to do without sounding like a self-pitying whinge-monger).
Since I wrote it, I’ve had many many more bad reviews (none as hatchety as the one mentioned below, but several best termed “Chestbursters”, as they tend to arrive when you least expect them and totally fuck up your day). Still, my skin is far thicker these days, and I absolutely admit that this is because I have been extremely lucky and I am now able to make a living from writing (i.e. I can now afford Valium).
Book details
- The Three by Sarah Lotz
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EAN: 9781444770360
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- Tooth and Nailed by Sarah Lotz
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EAN: 9780143026341
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- Pompidou Posse by Sarah Lotz
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EAN: 9780143025719
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- Exhibit A by Sarah Lotz
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EAN: 9780143025726
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Image courtesy Mail & Guardian