So, I, like any other writer know how hard it can be to take criticism, especially when it comes to your own writing.
Recently I participated in a writing shoot out, in which the stories I wrote were not well received by some and I got a thoroughly mixed bag of scores. I’d been prepared for it though, having participated previously.
But to later be told by a fellow participant that they had the “displeasure of reading my work” was something that I found in bad taste and didn’t sit well with me at all.
Admittedly, I saw red, and I wanted to lash out. Only I didn’t. Not exactly. The first words out of my mouth were not expletives. It could have so easy been.
What I realized however was simple: This person did not know me. And in not knowing me he couldn’t judge me, or my writing, to the full extent. Telling me if I cannot fully commit to a deadline because of personal constraints, is, in a word, stupid. It was supposed to be fun, and it was up until that point.
However bad my writing may be, I’m aware of it, but at the same time, I must have some potential to have been published 6 times by three different anthologies.
I have something and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let the spark go out.
