COOKIE-CUTTER...MOI?

Jackie has sent me some new comments from her colleagues who have read the advanced copies of the Demi-Monde.

Adrienne found it 'a refreshing and markedly different book' (what an astute girl!), made the hard-hearted Trixie her favourite character (a few people - especially girls - seem to like Trixie which I do find a little surprising), and found some of my humour a little repetitive. All-in-all, not bad.

Then she came to George. He liked the book because it was something different, but thought some of the characters were a little 'cookie-cutterish'. Now that stopped me in my tracks, mainly because I'd never heard the expression before. I had to Google it: 'predictable', 'a conformist attitude', 'lacking in originality'. A bit harsh, George!

But I suppose I'd better get used to criticism (good and bad). I've gone through my life advocating free-speech and being anti-censorship arguing that without criticism a society stultifies and never improves so it'll be a little thick if I throw my rattle out of the pram just because the DM isn't George's cup of tea.

No, what I've got to do is make sure that when George reads DM: Spring he starts to believe in the characters as fully rounded people and all thoughts of cookie-cutters are forgotten.