There. I said it.  

I’m not being cocky. Arrogant. Blasé.  

Just being real.  

It’s hard as a human to think some people may not like you. May even hate you. Hate your work. Here you are spending months, years maybe, working your poor starving heart to death doing something that you don’t think you’ll finish, and when you do, you don’t think anyone is going to read it.  

Then some do.  

What happens is, they write reviews.  

If your friends and family write them, they’re probably pretty promising. Filled with accolades about your artistic prowess.  

But what about the other ones? The real ones. The ones where they don’t know you and don’t care how much it may injure you if they tell you the truth. Sometimes, maybe most times, they may be trying to injure you.  

It sucks. You do feel physical pain. Some of those spiteful reviewers leave reviews packed with so much passion and eloquence that if they put that much effort into a manuscript, they would probably be successful. Better than me for sure.  

As much as it may slap your soul across the face and keep you up at night, fear not. In fact, rejoice.  

It just wasn’t for them. Wasn’t written for them. It was written for you. Because that story chose you. You didn’t choose it.  

My first set of reviews inspired me to write. They were pretty good considering I’d never written a novel before. But there were some doozies in there was well. Someone might have told everyone that would read his review that I should quit writing and other things about me being an idiot, untalented, failure.  

He was one of the ones who could have had a promising writing career had he put that aggression to work on something positive.  

At the end of the day, it just wasn’t for him. Or the other ones who had every right not to get past the first chapter.  

It was for those other folks. The ones who continued to read my other books.  

I’m not for everyone.  

Nobody is for everyone.  

I don’t even think it’s good to be for everyone.  

If you are, you’re sure as shit not being yourself.