Thank you for sharing this. It is rather inspirational to see you take this negative feedback in stride. I am unfortunately the kind of writer/person that rather than subject myself to any potential negative criticism… I simply do nothing.

I let even the slightest possibility that I will receive a negative review or even a silly “thumbs down” actually stop me from writing… and I’m just an idiot on the internet, I’m not receiving any sort of academic feedback.

At the end of all this you will not only have built a great novel, but also a lot of writer-flavored character. I’m currently a college senior, who needs a few electives to graduate… through following along, I’m now actively considering a creative writing class. It might force me to “get over myself”!

And that sucks because I take all that very personal. At least initially.

The temptation is to rationalize why they are wrong, that they don’t get your vision. Or maybe they are unqualified to judge your masterpiece.

(You don’t get to tell yourself this because this is your professor making the critique. They should have the ‘tools’ to judge your work objectively.)

I used to work of a newspaper and when the owner/editor/head writer hired me to do layouts, he told me ‘Sometimes you are going to do work I don’t like and I’ll have you redo it. This doesn’t mean I don’t like you. And it doesn’t mean you can’t do the job. It just means this layout didn’t work.

I’ve always remembered that because I’ve gotten a ton of rejection over the years and I’ve always tried to keep it in that perspective. To get really good at something (and you have to be really good to get people to pay you for entertainment) you have to go through a lot of this.

So I have learned that these sort of things are actually helping me and its actually a kind thing to get an honest critique.

At least that’s how I feel after going through the stages of anger, denial and grieving!

Hang in there!
Scott Sackett