Why A Writer Should Ignore Praise and Embrace Critiques.

At age ten I wrote a poem in class, it was about fireworks. My English teacher loved it so much that she sent a praise note home to my mother and I was convinced I was the next Shakespeare. To set the record straight, the poem wasn’t good, I am not a poet, I still do not know my Donnes from my Dickensons. It was just better than the rest of the class because all the spelling was (mostly) correct and I successfully managed a quatrain and a metaphor. But that escaped the notice of a ten-year-old who strutted around the class like I was the secret lovechild of Bob Dylan picking up the family Nobel.

That little bit of praise was all it took to convince me I was a writer.

Writers are not born, they are made. I became a writer after that moment. Years shut in my bedroom with an A4 jumbo refill pad, and a multipack of blue biros instead of hanging out with my peers turned me into one. If I had known then what I know now I would not have been so eager to enslave myself to it at such a young age. ‘Say no to drugs’, we should be telling the kids to say no to writing. It’s not an easy life. You’ll spend most of it working jobs you hate, not being able to commit to a career because your heart belongs to another life. Some of us are brave enough to chase our dream, others don’t make it and keep their imaginary worlds to themselves. To get your words past your front door, you need a thick skin. Praise may create writers, but we are only successful if we can survive on our own steam, without others pretty words to massage our ego. Writers write because it’s like breathing to us, it’s impossible to stop, even if we get a bad review.

If I’m honest with myself, it would be another fourteen years (despite a run of cringe-worthy plays put on between the ages of twelve and sixteen) before I wrote anything I look back on I can say showed promise. Hollow praise, like the teacher on that day, can be found easily, friends and family all look at the talent I have nurtured from hard work and practice and say ‘you’re so clever’, ‘I could never write a novel’. As nice as it is to hear, that’s of no use to me. What 90% of my friends and family’s praise boils down to is an acknowledgment that they are wired differently. That they do not have that bit in their brain that would allow them to ponder the different connotations of one sentence for an hour, that they would not run home excitedly to write a scene that has been stuck in their heads all day. This I already know. It’s the same way I admire the way a gymnast tackles a high bar or a floor routine. I know I could never do that, but it does not mean it is good in comparison to the other gymnasts. Until someone is willing to pay money for my work, or the feedback comes from someone in the industry, I have no interest in praise.

Every rejection you receive has to push you harder. Every manuscript that has been sent back from a publisher, every critique received in a writers group, every negative comment from a beta reader. The writer who can use that to say ‘what more can I do to this work?’, ‘how much further can I push my writing?’ will reach the finish line. Most days that’s me, I admit there have been times when I’ve faltered, but I never stop.

Writing is like training for a marathon, you will have days where you are lazy and produce bad results, you will need coaches, and you will need advice and practice. My coaches are my writing group. We meet once a month purely to eviscerate each other’s beloved characters and stories. Like having someone reach into your soul, grab your heart, and squeeze, brutal and bloody. It’s hard listening to the feedback, but it’s always necessary. It’s nothing a publisher or reader won’t say.

So do not be afraid of receiving a ‘no’ and do not shy away from others reading your work even if they might not like it. After all, isn’t that the eventual goal?