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One of the hardest things in writing is being honest with yourself and, much more importantly, your writing. The problem is sending your writing out into the world, where the following will judge it: family friends peers the reading public critics. These forces influence the writer in different ways. Some of my books have heavy sex scenes. I often wonder how my family feels about me producing those. Do they walk around thinking, Wow, he’s really depraved? Any number of elements in a story could stun, repulse, or frighten a family member who thought they knew the writer. I think this sits at the forefront of a lot of writers’…
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When you’re published, it’s usually a good idea to not read the reviews. That means don’t stalk a reviewing platform such as Goodreads. The logic is that no matter how many good reviews you have, you’ll focus on the bad ones. It’s human nature. Avoiding reviews is great in theory. And I have a number of published author friends who advise me not to check out the reviews, while I advise them not to check out the reviews. And then we check out the reviews. I envy people who can just not worry about it. But it seems most can’t. Writing is intensely personal. You have this idea you want…