Christ its been a while since I posted here. I went into high burn on a couple of writing projects, plus school and spring break, so its probably not something to whine about. Ah well, I like bitching. I've mentioned here a couple of times that I'm an aspiring writer. I've had about a dozen short stories published, and I'm working on my first novel with some interest from a major publishing house. It doesn't pay the bills, by a long shot, but there's a chance it could turn into a career someday. That's the dream anyways.
      My first short story was published in a small magazine and read by family and basically no one else. The second, which was approaching novella length, was actually in an anthology, from a publisher some of you have probably heard of. It got slammed by every critic. Badly. Like "Who the hell is this kid and who did he bribe to get this crap in a book?" Reading reviews like that hurt, a lot. But for every review, I tracked down the critic and did my best to send a thankyou email. Just thanked them for taking the time to read and promised to improve with my next piece. Its' amazing how far courtesy can take you, in this and every other business.
      All of this is preamble to the following link, which I saw on Neal Gaiman 's twitter feed a couple days ago (he's a great read).   http://booksandpals.blogspot.com/2011/03/greek-seaman-jacqueline-howett.html#comments     Read it and weep. I've honestly never seen anyone ruin their career so quickly.
      When I sent emails to the people who'd reviewed my story, the response was so positive I nearly cried reading it. Even the guy who wrote the single harshest review replied in a day, told me it was nothing personal and that he admired my passion and professionalism. Most importantly, he told me to send links to anything I got published in the future, and that he'd read everything and only write about it if he had good things to say. Since then, he's written enthusiastic reviews of three of my stories, and introduced me to the editor who could be publishing my first novel next year (I'm praying). Point is, keep your temper under control and show people some respect. Good things happen.