First off: Happy New Year to all fellow writers out there! May 2015 be a good, productive, creative and successful year for all of us!
I spent Christmas and New Year\’s with my family in Germany, and despite my best intentions I didn\’t do anything but eat and sleep. I didn\’t do any revising or writing, or anything else that involved my laptop for that matter. I swear that sometimes I could hear it whimper from my room …
What I did do was read comments regarding the first three chapters of my novel from a very close and good friend of mine … and man did he bash my writing! At least that\’s what I thought when I read his email for the first time. I didn\’t read it again for a few days because I was really discouraged and was basically pouting and doubting my ability to even get a single sentence right, so I just wanted to throw away my proverbial quill and give up. But then I started reading his comments (and amendments) to my writing, and I realized that he wasn\’t trying to be mean at all … it\’s just that he is SO far away from my target audience that he just plain did not enjoy my writing style.
Whereas my novel caters to young adults/adults like me who still feel young/mostly women, my friend is a gentleman in his early sixties who enjoys reading books by Clive Cussler … and that is definitely not the type of book I am writing (or could write), nor is it my writing style. My friend made a bunch of changes to my text and writing, and the more I read it, the more I realized that he was trying to turn it into something that could have come from Cussler and similar authors. Which is not to say that I don\’t like Clive\’s writing … I do, and it\’s clearly a successful style. It\’s just not mine.
Now, don\’t get me wrong. I don\’t blame my friend at all for his rather harsh words, and it was probably a stupid idea of me to give the draft to a person who is clearly not one of the readers I am trying to reach. It was a great learning experience for me though. In general, I don\’t deal well with criticism, so that\’s definitely something I need to work on. And, to be fair, he did have some good points that I will consider. But it also taught me not to lose faith in myself just because one person does not like my writing. I am sure there will be plenty more, and I should really be able to deal with that.
I would love to hear from you how you deal with criticism and inevitable self-doubt!
Here\’s to a happy, healthy, and overall great 2015!
Xo, Aileen