Sunday, June 12, 2005

A new review blog

HelenKay and Wendy are starting a new blog for honest reviews. It'll be interesting to see how that goes. As Monica points out on HelenKay's blog, it's not easy for a published author to review other authors-- criticism tends to be taken particularly personally by romance authors, for some reason. But despite this I think it's a good idea. It doesn't do the genre as a whole any good to pretend that every romance book written is a masterpiece. Some romances are brilliant, and some are awful, and most are (by definition) more or less average. Reviews of romance ought to reflect that.

In writing news, I sent off Farthest Space to a critique partner-- the first time I've used a cp (other than DH) for any of my books. I hope her comments will be useful... I told her to be harsh, but many people find it difficult to be honest enough. So we'll see.

2 comments:

  1. It's scary to run the risk of offending fellow authors. We really don't want to do that. That's not the purpose. We want this to be a good thing not a bad thing.

    Along those lines....one of yours is coming soon.

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  2. *G* Well, you won't offend ME. If I can take Mrs. Giggles, I can take anything:-).

    But there are unfortunately authors who take any negative comment about ANY aspect of their writing personally. It goes back to what someone-- Wendy?-- said on her blog... some romance readers and authors seem to think that any acknowledgement that every romance isn't perfect is somehow a slam of the whole genre. In fact I think criticism can only improve the genre, so go for it. And good luck!

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