Unlike poor Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, I’ve never depended on the kindness of strangers. I’ve always thought that doing so was most unwise, as strangers can’t reliably be depended upon. However, when people I don’t know emerge from nowhere to be unexpectedly kind or complimentary, it usually gives me such a boost that I feel as if I’m walking on air. I’m not the sort of person who craves attention, but I love compliments as much as the next person. You can imagine how I felt a few days ago when I received a whopping big compliment on one of the pages of this website; it was the first ever compliment on my site from a complete stranger.

I’m only just learning the ropes of SEO, so I don’t suppose a lot of strangers have managed to stumble across my website yet. And even if they have, I wouldn’t expect them to comment. The only people who comment either know me in person or they’re editing clients I’ve worked with before and we at least know each other via emailing or social media. The stranger’s comment was short and sweet, but as far as I was concerned, it was a doozy: the lady said that my writing had given her goosebumps. She’d been reading an excerpt I released on this website from my novel-in-progress, Virginia’s Ghost, in which my heroine encounters an unexpected presence in the basement of the auction house where she works. The whole purpose of that scene was to give readers goosebumps, and just knowing that at least one person was affected that way really lifted my spirits, especially since I’d been feeling stuck in an uncomfortable state of limbo between my second and third drafts for days. Her words of encouragement got me started on my third draft. Who knew that just a few well-chosen words could have such a big impact?

Many writers I know, including me, work in a critical vacuum throughout much of the writing process. In the absence of positive feedback, it’s all too easy for your self-confidence as a writer to dwindle. It’s vital to receive some sort of psychic pay in the form of praise from time to time. And praise from strangers is really the best sort to receive, as it’s motivated only by the quality of the work itself. Strangers don’t feel the need to be nice to you the way your friends and family often do; they don’t tend to treat your ego as if it were a fragile piece of glass.

And knowing that your writing is having the desired effect–that it’s genuinely reaching into people’s hearts and affecting them in exactly the way that you wish to affect them–is a wonderful feeling. It just doesn’t get much better than that. Yes, I write to satisfy my creative impulses and my need to express myself, but I also write to engage readers in the story I wish to tell and to move people emotionally. My audience is vital to me, and that they are moved by my words means I’m effectively doing my job as a writer. And it also means that I have very powerful motivation indeed to continue.

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