| Writing is a pretty solitary activity. So when good attention starts coming our way, we can be excused for a moment if we bask in the adulation. Our time in the spotlight is all too brief—or so it seems.
But the thing about praise is this: however much you get, it’s never enough. And if your desire for praise begins to supersede your desire to tell a story, you are lost entirely. That place within where your stories come from will start to dry up on you. And where is the praise going to come from, then? Googling your own name, trolling for old reviews and notices, gets pretty old after awhile.
And when you start to care too much about what other people say in praise, then something else happens—you start to care too much when other people say things that are not so nice. And they will.
There is one thing to care about in the writing life: telling a story, and telling it well. That’s the meat and potatoes of the thing. Praise is just a little parsley. Try to make a whole meal out of the garnish, and you’ll starve.
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