Well that was a piece of crap.

Recently, I wrote a bad story. No, stop, there is no denying it, this piece was not up to snuff. And between you, me, and anyone who cares to look, it is not an isolated occurrence, either. Some of my worst stories are mercifully long. I say mercifully, because engagement with longer stories is always lower, thus saving possibly up to one or two collective man hours which might otherwise have been squandered on, just off the top of my head, a vague and clunky reimagining of Rip Van Winkle.

For most of us, I imagine, our various pieces of work sit on a self-perceived continuum from “absolute shite” to “well that is not actually too bad, is it”. I have a few pieces I am really quite pleased with, though I dare not re-read them for fear of bursting that bubble, a few I concede are dire, and a whole heap which are fall in the “hmmm” zone, a category which can itself be subdivided into “it’s got something, but…”, “it’s fine, I guess” and “it’s not without merit”. The piece in question is an “it’s got something, but….” for information.

I published this particular piece after a conversation with a fellow creator in which I had to confess that I had abandoned a piece of writing as a bad job and left it flailing in a state of incompetence. This dirty little secret revealed, I felt that I could not look myself in the eye if I didn’t go back and either help the thing to its feet or conclusively put it out of its misery. I chose the former, committing it to limp off to cross the publication line with one knee bent backwards and missing three toes on the other foot, but I would like to think it did so whilst smiling, if we are personifying our pen-babies.

Now, the issue with this piece was that I wanted to invoke the confusion and unreliability of the protagonist, whilst still maintaining a coherent narrative, in 366 words, and I was aware, in part due to the unflinchingly unfiltered feedback from my partner, that the telling had favoured confusion over coherence. I made a few changes which I thought moved it at least in the direction of coherence, and I put it out there, in hope that balance had been struck!

It had not. Or not fully at any rate.

The comments began to arrive. Though not unanimously so, most of them found a relatively courteous way to say “er, what?” (They were unanimously courteous, understand, just not unanimously confused.)

And here is where I come to my point. I wrote a bad story. Not completely bad, but not really good enough. It didn’t quite work. And people told me. PEOPLE TOLD ME! Right there to my, well, not face, but internet mediated presence at least. And I just kind of wanted to celebrate that with you all. I missed, and you told me! And I have never felt more safe on this platform than I did watching the bafflement roll in. It’s not just that people were nice about it, which they were, it’s that people were generous, courageous, and supportive enough to voice it.

I have always felt constructive criticism to be immensely valuable in our quest to improve at anything, but it got me thinking about the power of suboptimal feedback in other ways too. Let’s come back to my partner, bless his currently COVID covered cotton socks. My partner is a man for whom a hint is as useful as the human appendix. He is generous, and conscientious, and caring, but he is not subtle beast. We are well matched in this, I suspect. A year or so ago he started painting with water colours, and a few weeks ago presented for my feedback a picture that was both bland and poorly executed. Which I of course told him. “Yes,” he agreed. “I thought it might be.”

Generally, we know when we have fallen a bit too wide of the mark. Generally. Would it be helpful then, for everyone to say “Oh GOOD JOB”, and pat us on the head? Yes and no (and it’s always yes and no for me). I am not here to tell toddlers their walking is crap. When my kids took their first teetering steps I was the first to applaud, despite their obvious incompetence. We all need encouragement, we all need to feel we are working with something worth investing our energy in, and we offer that to one another here. Space to try things and not be shot down for our efforts. I am so grateful for that. But do we praise that same child for leaving their laundry in a heap by the laundry bin ten years later? Do we think “close enough” and let it go? Well, sometimes we do, there is only so much nagging a person can muster in a day isn’t there? But at our best, we point accusingly at the offending heap of stinky socks and say “Darling, I have faith in your ability to do better.”

So I am also grateful for being told “Hannah, I think you’ve made a woopsie.” So much so, that this is really a very protracted way of saying thank you for that. Thank you for demonstrating the mutual trust and respect needed to do that and thank you for lending validity to the times you HAVE said “good job”. Thank you, in summary, for being a truly great community. I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge that.