The Dreaded REVIEW

O.K. I've come to a rather raw conclusion. It's hard to accept reviews from people who have read your works. I know they are being honest. Some people will like your work, some people won't. This is just a fact of life. I myself have critiqued some works rather harshly. Recently, an author published a work on Smashwords that had an error I could not overlook. Let me explain. I make some pretty silly gramatical mistakes myself, so I shouldn't judge. But, this author didn't know the proper there, their, or they're to use. This is one of my pet peeves with students at school. A couple of days later I logged into Barnes and Noble only to have my own scathing critique posted. I read it and couldn't believe the review, because out of all the stories I have written this one probably had the least amount of mistakes. Secondly, I had a critique partner. This means that someone other than me read through it and helped me fix those mistakes. I couldn't help but think that I had a retribution review. If you are insecure don't become an author. What I mean to say is that authors bare their souls when they write. Bad reviews are like attacks on those souls. Even the slightest insecurity can lead to a rehashing of the work itself. For me as a writer, I just had to put my proverbial foot down and say, "this is out of my hands." Either they will like it or hate it. Done.