"Everybody's a critic!"

So ever since I went public with the publishing of my book, I've experienced nothing but positivity and joy. It's been awesome, but on the back burner of my mind, I've known that eventually I'm going to have to face some critics and harsh words.

Eventually has arrived.

Apparently someone I used to converse with a lot, whom I haven't spoken to in years, has decided to "review" my book (but really review myself) without having ever read it in it's full form. I'm sure he had read my posts on Harpies Bizarre (or elsewhere as I understand someone had copied them and posted to another site of less than stellar reputation) and thinks the book will be just that. Let's forget that it's been through many revisions and additions...anyway, apparently my "book is just his opinions of each Bewitched episode with said opinion's being of less then sound mind and body."

I love it!

It reminds me of this awesome quote by Teddy Roosevelt:

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."

Now, I'm not saying writing the book was done in sweat and blood, but it was many, many hours of writing as well as research, and it was all done with great enthusiasm and devotion. So what if my book is not a best seller? If it's not so perfect, so what? Quite frankly, I wrote it specifically for myself and it's just a bonus that there were other people who also enjoyed it enough to ask that I would get my writings published.

I'm not going to say anything derisive about my first critic, as really he's not criticizing the book so much as he's making an uniformed personal attack on myself, I shall just quote Endora when Durwood's mother asked her not to criticize Durwood:

"Durwood needs no criticism from me...what's wrong with him is for the whole world to see!" Bewitched, Episode #103: "It's Wishcraft"