Not everyone will like what you do and that's okay!

The curtains go up, the music starts, the audience begins to laugh and applaud, and I run off the stage crying.  Granted I was five years old at the time.  And today if I was in that audience I would also have laughed.  Five year olds dressed in nothing but a pair of shorts, topless except for balloons cellotaped in strategic places, must have looked quite hilarious.  Especially when some balloons popped as the curtains opened.

It took me years to recover from that experience and get over my stagefright.
Writing a book and publishing it is a bit like going out on stage.  You put yourself out there for everybody to see and comment on.  You stand there completely exposed, at the mercy of your audience.  Sometimes the balloons pop and your audience see more than what you bargained on.  Occasionally they find mirth in something that should have been serious.  Some love to tear everything to shreds, not quite distinguishng the fine line between being critical and just being a bitch.  Others identify with your characters and love what you do.
Here's the thing.  You can't please everybody every time.
We are all different, unique, with different experiences which shape our opinions and perceptions.  We don't all like the same things.
For me cucmber in a salad is a fate worse than death.  I always gingerly fish them out when I happen upon them.  Other people might like cucumbers so much, they even, horror upon horrors, eat it before it even goes into a salad.  Standing in the kitchen nibbling on pieces of cucumber while they prepare a meal.
You don't have to like what everybody else likes.  Not everybody has to like what you do.  So it stands to reason that not everybody has to like what you write and that's okay.
Cindy Vine lives at the foot of Kilimanjaro and is the author of Not Telling, Defective and C U @ 8.