Page 79 of Loathing My Boss
“It’s one of the cleanest first drafts I have ever seen.”
“You’re joking.”
His brows lower, severe. “Why would I joke about something like that?”
Why, indeed.
Glancing down at my page spackled in hearts, I say, “If it was so good, why didn’t you have anything good to say about it in front of everyone?”
“What do you mean?”
“Too much description. Choppy transitions.”
“A few choppy transitions, and you need to be aware of your description. Everything else, I loved. Waxing poetic about everything I loved doesn’t help you grow as an author.”
“What in the world are you talking about? Ofcourseit does. If you don’t tell me my strengths, how am I supposedto capitalize on them?”
Viktor…stares at me. Then, his eyes trail to the ground.
Something I’ve kept pent up inside for ten years rages to the surface. “Furthermore, some people aren’t as resilient as Odessa who can take athe very foundation of your work suckedand turn it into leaps and bounds of improvement.”
“She did amazing.”
“She did. Because she’s amazing. Not everyone is as amazing. Some of us are fragile, and you—especially given your position as a well-known author—hold a lot of emotional cards for people. One negative word from you can be soul crushing.”
“Critiques aren’t meant to be positive affirmations. They’re intended to help you improve.” He plunges his fingers into his hair, using his right hand, so I guess the sting’s irritation has completely abated now. I should have known from how he was using his red pen without issue earlier. “Is this how you’re telling me I was too harsh with you, Crisis? I’d prefer if you’d just say that.”
“Honestly, you were too harsh with everyone. It’s like you’ve never heard of the compliment sandwich.”
“I don’t see where calculating how to frame actionable information in compliments does anything but waste everyone’s time. If someone’s too soft to handle how they can improve their work, maybe they shouldn’t be professional authors, because professional authors? We get hate emails. And horrible reviews. On our most polished, most clean, most picked apart final drafts. People crawl out of the woodwork to hate us. Because, yeah, some of them don’t stop at the work. They hateus. They draw conclusions about who we are based on our fiction, and they despise us for any number of things, even just failing to get the next book out on their time schedule. I once got a one-star review that said it would have been five stars—ifthe last book in the trilogy had been out. It was a twenty-four-paragraph-long review. Bursting with hatred and calling me a horrible person because I left afantasy sequel with trilogy intenton acliffhanger.”
“Readers are in a different pocket, Viktor,” I snap. “Reader hate, entitlement, and absolutely bone-dead stupid reviews arenormaland quite thoroughly inconsequential. Hearing only negative from someone you admire, someone who’s a master in the field, someone likeyoucan be disheartening on an entirely different level. Not everyone is as emotionless as you where it concerns their work.”
“I did not get to this point in my career with positive feedback, Crisis. I—” He stops. Lips parted, he sits frozen, gaze locked on the floor in front of him.
A shiver cuts down my spine. “What?” I whisper.
His eyes close, and he rocks his head back, scraping a hand down his face as he groans. He swears. “I’m…sorry. You’re right. You’ve got to be right.”
“Don’t you dare concede because you just remembered that you’re supposed to bein lovewith me or something.”
A dry laugh exits him, hollow. “I would never, sweet pea. I’m conceding because I remembered who first taught me that improvement only comes from blood and tears… My parents had strict expectations for their kids to stand out and shine. I showed some potential with writing when I was young. Or, maybe I didn’t. Maybe I just aced the right essay at the wrong time. They fixated on the factI’dbecome their great author. It was similar with everyone else, except Kaleb. Zakery sketched in the margins of his papers.He’s our artist, they said. Lukas couldn’t get music out of his head, so they shovedfivedifferent instruments at him, gave him voice lessons, and put him on a stage. Kyran was their baby, and he had all of us to protect and guide him, so he was spared the crowds and the niche classes. Butthey still managed to force him into being an internet sensation before they died. Nothing any of us ever did was good enough or perfect enough. Before the calluses formed, they made Lukas practice guitar until his fingers bled. Not a single kind word, but look at us? It’s likely I internalized that only focusing on where you can be better is how you succeed professionally. I know that’s not how it works outside of a career. I know people are fragile and desperate for love and acceptance. But I’ve put up emotional blockades between myself andwork. And it shows.”
That is heartbreaking.
And it does nothing to quell the torrent of guilt that overcomes me.
Stomach sour, I plant my precious pages beside my laptop, open it, and go to an ancient email address that barely sees an incoming message these days.
Everything about it is juvenile, right down to the name:WritingThroughChaos.
It was my internet handle.
Once upon a time.
Unsteady, I rise from my chair and offer my seat to Viktor.
Carefully, he crosses the room, sits, and looks at my computer screen.
