Toughen Your Writing Hide.

I was talking to a writerly friend of mine the other day.

--Uh, I HATE talking on the phone, so I try not to do it, BUT when I do it's best to plan for a marathon.  I can talk for HOURS . . . probably because I don't talk to myself when I write and when my kidlet and hubby are home, I can never get a word in edgewise!

Anyhoo, we bounced around various topics for over a couple of hours . . . yes, I said a couple of hours.  We were talking about how different people handle criticism, whether it's a contest entry, a critique, or a reviewer dissing a book.  Everyone deals with it in different ways, but she said something that struck with me, especially when someone comments negatively to your input.

WARNING: Tangent ahead:


Years ago, I owned a horse.  I wasn't well off and it was all I could do to afford board, farrier, vet and one lesson a week. If I wanted to compete in Hunter schooling shows, I saved my money. Paying a trainer to work my horse was rare. I think I could count the times on one hand when I paid a trainer to work Buster (my last horse. I bought him green-broke--he knew how to stop . . . sort of). I had to figure it out for myself. If Buster didn't do what I asked, I had to figure out WHAT I was doing wrong.  I obviously wasn't giving him the right signal. So I had to figure out how to communicate with Buster. It was a partnership. I LEARNED from the experience.

So, in other words, having someone else hop on your horse to fix it, what do you learn?  Do you learn how to communicate better with your partner?  Do you learn how to ask correctly?  Do you learn ANYTHING?

--No.

Here are a few things to think about:


1) Before you publish:
--if you don't really 'want' input, don't ask for it. 
--If you want your ego stroked talk to your mom, dad, sis, bro, or even your CP's, don't ask for a critique or submit as a contest entry.  Different people pick up on different things.
--get over yourself. 
--if a reader/judge/CP is confused about something, don't get defensive--get real.  You're too close to the story.  You KNOW what's going to happen, but you didn't do your job as a writer to give the reader enough information to understand.
--if you take everything a CP/judge tells you to 'fix' your story, you are writing yourself out of the story.  Don't use their words to fix something, use your own.
2) After publishing:
--reviewers can be nasty, why give them power over you?  It's not like you can do anything about your book.  It's a done deal.  It's in print. So what if they don't like it.  Don't read reviews.
--true, it's easy for me to say because I'm unpublished.  But you can't fix a published book, then why waste your emotions over something someone wrote about it?

I'm busy editing FAERIE, so . . .
Write on!