November 3

Anyone who writes seriously, in my opinion an extraordinarily foolish thing to do, will at times feel compelled to place his or her work in a public forum and subject it to scrutiny. As Robert Heinlein pointed out, writing is nothing to be ashamed of, but it should be done in private and you should wash your hands afterwards. Putting that to the side for the moment, once what you have written is exposed to the gaze of the world at large you have to expect to receive criticism of your work. Some people will like it and others will despise it. Marie Gouze, a playwright, journalist and feminist, writing as Olympe de Gouges in the eighteen century, wrote a great deal and received a great deal of criticism of her literary oeuvres. Criticism can at times be very cutting, at times more cutting than one would reasonably expect. On the 3rd in 1793, poor Marie was guillotined for her literary efforts. It seems that the publishing tool ‘Sorry, not for us. Better luck elsewhere’ had yet to be invented.