I think writing can be a very personal thing. Which sounds strange given that I’m saying it on a blog that can potentially be read by millions.
But for the most part, aside from the occasional request to post more, it is largely not subject to criticism – well, if you don’t count the ranting comments from a certain banned player a month ago. Certainly, I do not get people pointing out the (numerous) spelling, and grammatical errors. Nor does anyone review and post criticisms on my writing style, or lack-there-of.
So, what I got today was a new experience. People have always told me I write well. But then again, I’m running the game they play on so there is a suck-up factor there. Back to today. I decided, for the first time, to write. Or type. My hand-writing is too messy for anyone to read and I get constantly frustrated when I mix letters around the wrong way and my hand can’t keep up with the speed of my brain.
Actually I need to go back another 24 hours, when I was in bed and near sleep and there were words spinning around my head and the idea for a story was born. It stuck, and I found myself feeling a need to start, what I could remember of it, today. I did. And got off a few hundred words, not more than a couple of pages. I felt quite proud. I read over it. Made some changes. Read over it, made a few more changes. I was happy. Pleased with myself. So far so good, right?
The next bit is where I went wrong. I decided to ask someone their thoughts. So, I sent it off, expecting some words of encouragement, a few ideas, and a few suggestions. But overall, I thought that any feedback would be (mostly) good. The fact that it wasn’t hurt. The only aspect that gained a positive response was the first paragraph. But given that it was only a half dozen words… that doesn’t tell me much beyond that.. maybe I’m just not that good. And that I don’t deal well with criticism. Well, perhaps the latter isn’t that surprising given how much of it I get constantly, all day. It wasn’t that I expected a sugar-coated reply of lies… I just.. I don’t know what I expected.
Maybe I’m just not that good. The few hundred word text file has been archived into the File partition of my hard drive, where everything goes that never really gets looked at again.
Empheba
September 21, 2009 at 2:11 am
Sorry to hear the (I suppose jarring) critique got you down. One gets attached to one’s work and hearing that it is not optimal is never fun. But if you feel the text was good enough, why should you be stopped by the opinions of another?
When getting critique on my own artistic works (be it text or images) from all over the web, I usually try to differentiate between those who are just trying to bring me down and those that are honest in trying to help you improve. The latter are the only ones that matter – and even though it’s never fun to hear your work has flaws, it makes it more bearable (for me) to know that the feedback they give are genuine and might help me.
There is however one thing that is very important to remember. It is /your/ work. This takes some training, but after many years I’ve learned that sometimes I just don’t agree with people giving critique – and that this is just fine. In those cases I thank them for the feedback but just plain ignore their suggestions.
My point is this – If /you/ think your text was good and a nice read, why should one other person’s opinion be more worth than yours? Just because you asked for feedback does not make them correct, or something you must follow like a slave. It’s /your/ work, /your/ decision on what is good or not. You obviously thought this was a great idea when you started writing. Go with that, keep writing. Why not send your draft to some more people to get more opinions, or just ignore what we ignorant bastards think and just write on anyway.
.
Empheba
Demosthenes
September 21, 2009 at 8:28 am
First drafts are almost always bad. The most important thing is to finish. Be thick-skinned and if you enjoy the process, persist at it.
Blindyd
September 21, 2009 at 9:36 am
Time for some possitive motivation! Keep at it Carmine, no matter if you wrote scribbles verticly on the paper, it would be seventy-eighty times better then what I could do. So just think, your seventy-eighty times better then someone at wrighting!