When I was young, (32 now) I used to have so many ideas for stories to write. One in particular, I began writing in s notebook until I had written approximately 50 or so pages by hand. I was so proud of it. Even though it wasn't nearly close to done, I felt I was accomplishing something. My Mother loved it. Shared it with the family. Then her husband, (my step father) asked for a look and rather than say anything about the story itself, he ranted about the poor choice in title. (I called it "Ebony.")
The way he raved about a poor title being all that was needed to ensure no one would read it unless obligated to crushed me. No amount of compliments from others could mute his words shouting in my head. I set the notebook aside and let it collect dust. I'm older now and with many more stories I want to tell. But his words somehow still stay my hand even if I'm not focusing on a good or bad title and the frustration of being unable to voice the words in my head is sometimes paralyzing.
Has there ever been a time where negative words said years ago has affected you like this?
One of my first short stories, written when I was 22 or just 23, I proudly showed to two people whose opinions I respected in the Fantasy world, both editors. One said it wasn't very good. The other told me it was "pretentious twaddle". I put the story away, and when I thought of it, I felt guilty for having written a story that bad and for ever showing it to people.
Twenty years later I was asked for a story for an anthology, remembered that long-ago buried story and went into the attic and found it in a box of things I was never going to show anyone. I read it, to see if there was anything in the mass of pretentious twaddle that I could use. It wasn't actually bad at all, which surprised me. It was a typewritten manuscript, so I retyped it, fixing things I needed to fix on the way, but there wasn't a lot to do.
When it was published it won awards.
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