Receiving criticism for work you’ve written is part of being a writer. It’s actually a requirement for a writer to ask for feedback. It helps, really, when you are told that parts of your sentences suck, that your subjects and verbs have irreconcilable differences and should be annulled, and that your stories are pure drivel and your manuscript should be thrown into the fire. That last part isn’t true: I typically keep my sucky stories so I can laugh about them on my free time.
So anyway, this morning I got feedback for one of the stories I wrote and let me just say, BURN BABY BURN! The test reader seemed so incensed (irked, angry, furious, miffed) at my writing that she took a lot of her precious time to detail my shortcomings. Her tone tempted me to write her an apology for wasting her time on my story. At any rate, she sounded like the reincarnation of William Safire in heels, with fangs and can breathe fire. (I happen to like William Safire; he shared his lessons in locution, language and usage with humor so nobody minds being corrected.)
Here’s the thing about feedback and criticism, it helps, but being on the receiving end of it feels like getting hit with buckshot at less than 10 feet. It stings – okay, it hurts like a damned bitch, the pellets get everywhere, and you’re thrown about a foot back each time. It doesn’t matter if you’re wearing protective armor, or if you’ve grown so accustomed to the sensation of getting shot. It’s a shitty feeling, and it doesn’t matter how many good feedback you get. Rejection sucks hairy rocks.
So I nurse a monster coke float, I listen to happy music, and I talk with my most favorite people in the world to gather the smithereens to which my self-confidence has been reduced. Later, I’ll reread the criticism and list the areas in which I need to improve, the parts of her dissertation I will need to disregard and the parts I will need to take seriously. Later, I’ll brush the buckshot off, quit being an infant, and revise.
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