Everyone's a critic.

With only days to go until I offer up Chapter One of this "plotastic" novel, I find my neuroses (Thank you, Jacob.) shifting in an altogether different direction.

For the extent of this project my anxiety has been focused like a laser on simply finishing. How many words today? How many pages left? When will this thing be done? It's simply the nature of the beast. My original goal was just that: to finish. And once the rough draft was done, that focus shifted over to the finished product. The deadline has, by and large, been my sole motivator.

Until now.

I overheard a discussion recently. Two people were sharing their views on a movie. One of them liked certain parts. The other one disliked those parts, but liked other elements of the movie. What I noticed is that these people were absolutely brutal in the delivery of their criticisms. Keep in mind, these were not professional critics. And they were not trying to be humorous or ironic. Their scathing criticisms of the film were quite serious and well thought-out. Yet neither of them owned the DVD; they had rented it. Each had only seen it once. And yet they developed very keen--and very passionate--opinions of the work.

It was frightening. Because I knew that very soon I would become the target of such criticism. It's daunting, really. I'm not someone who takes negative criticism well. But I suppose that is characteristic of most amateur and unpublished authors.

I was reading Pam Kelly's review of summer reading in the Charlotte Observer. And I greatly appreciate the list. Because Kelly did not endeavor to interject her own inflated opinions of each book. Instead, she neatly summarized the plots in a couple of sentences. It helps the reader understand which novel he/she may enjoy reading, without being overpowered by criticism.

Granted, I know that criticism has it's place. But I believe that place to be largely academic. Honestly, when I'm deciding to purchase a book, I don't really care if it's an ineffective bildungsroman with a failed protagonist and flimsy conflicts. I just want to know if it's an enjoyable read.

And I understand why we enjoy criticism so much. I'm guilty of it. Critiquing the work of an anonymous creator--who we will most likely never meet--gives us an air of superiority. It's gratifying to sound like we know what we're talking about (whether we do or not).

The folks at Salon.com have picked up on an issue of increasing concern, at least to people who care about this kind of thing: namely, that literary critics are a dying breed. Of course the culprit is assumed to be the blogosphere. As the article posits, who needs literary critics when bloggers are offering reviews for free? One of the commentators in the article goes further, suggesting that critics are dying off because their "host organisms" (read: novelists) are also dying off.

Not true! Here I am! Look at me!

I actually like to think that the passing of the professional literary critic is not a crisis, but a revolution. No longer must we rely on the intellectual elite to deem what is readable and what is not. We don't have to hide in the shadows with our Stephen Kings and our John Grishams, because at least somewhere out there is a knowledgeable person who lends some credence to these men's work--even if that person is found at www.ilovemediocregenrefiction.com.

So in the end, do I really have anything to fear? If readers absolutely hate my novel, will it be the end of my attempts at writing? Probably not. And who knows? Perhaps somewhere out there in the nether regions of the blogosphere someone will actually like my stuff.

Anyway, it helps me live with the fear.

-Mark