How both praise and criticism rob you of freedom
Blazing Reader,
Novelist Ken Liu, in the October issue of Locus magazine, had this to say about how both praise and criticism can rob you of your freedom of self-expression:
"I really try these days to remember something Laozi said in the Dao De Jing. I'm paraphrasing, but it's along the lines of: When you're criticized, you're afraid of getting more of it. When you're praised, you're afraid of losing it. In both cases, fear robs you of freedom.
"If you have a bestseller or win an award, it's natural to think, 'I hope the next one does as well,' and if it doesn't, you feel like you've failed. I've never really thought that way. There's a huge element of luck in whether a book wins an award or not. Sometimes what you write happens to be part of the zeitgeist, and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it strikes people at the right moment, sometimes not. Sometimes it's simply the right book in the right season. You can't treat these outcomes as judgment, not in a way that should matter to you.
"As a writer, you need to maximize your freedom. In that sense, I'm echoing [Ursula] Le Guin, who said the most important thing for a writer is freedom. If you let your fear of losing praise constrain you, you're no longer living freely. I've always tried to live up to that: to write what matters to me, to satisfy my own aesthetic judgment, and leave the rest to chance. You can't control sales or how people will respond to your work. The only thing you control is whether you believe in your vision and whether you've practiced your craft to execute it. I believed that when I started writing, and I still believe it now."
I couldn't agree more. For example, when I wrote Much Ado About Corona, I wasn't exactly expecting the New York Times to write a raving review or the CBC to give a feature interview.
You can read more of Ken Liu's contrarian views on the Locus website or check out his big "silkpunk" epic fantasy series, The Dandelion Dynasty, over at kenliu.name.
John C.A. Manley
P.S. On the subject of awards and freedom... my latest novel, All the Humans Are Sleeping, has been nominated for the Prometheus Award in the Best Novel category — honouring pro-freedom works.
John C. A. Manley is the author of Much Ado About Corona, All The Humans Are Sleeping and other works of philosophical fiction that are "so completely engaging that you find yourself alternately laughing, gasping, hanging on for dear life." Get free samples of his stories by becoming a Blazing Pine Cone email subscriber.
