Jessie J said this on The Voice, and although she was talking about singing, it could also be relevant for writers. There has been recent talk on here about harsh critiques, or ones that seem so to the receiver. I think it's very hard to receive critique, and harder still if the person giving it doesn't do it in a way you feel comfortable with. If we stop writing because we feel undermined, upset, and lose confidence, we are less likely to make it along the potholed road towards some kind of writing success.

As Sylvia Plath said, "The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt."

My skin has been thickened by my writing friends.

It's such a difficult business. I often watched The X Factor and wondered about the similarities between the singers on there and writers. How would I know if I was the wannabee who everyone else could hear singing out of tune, yet I could only hear the sound of a songbird (except I knew I wasn't quite there yet!)? And then there are the singers who sound fab but, according to the judges, their technique is not there yet. And then there are the Jedwards of this world...

That's so true. Good on Jessie J for saying it.

Although I still haven't managed a tougher skin! Don't think I ever will actually.

The trick with writing is to take what you need to hear, and ignore the rest. Finding the gold in a critique is very hard. Knowing when to ignore someone else's opinion even harder.

Knowing when to ignore someone else's opinion even harder.

Indeed! I had a bad crit in Feb and I couldn't contemplate writing for at least a month. I know others have been affected even more.

The fact that the same info had received extremely positive feedback from an agent didn't seem to make it any easier, though it should have done. Being a normally confident person I am not plagued by self-doubt, but it does sometimes rear its ugly head.

My skin has been thickened by my writing friends.

I do hope I wasn't a culprit?

How would I know if I was the wannabee who everyone else could hear singing out of tune, yet I could only hear the sound of a songbird

That is the very scary thing, Sharley, I agree. I fear that too. So when I recently looked at some stories I'd written 13 years ago and could see how weak they are, I was concerned that, because I thought then that they were good, that I am still way off and just can't see it myself.

I guess the important thing is to keep ploughing on, and we will improve, and at some point we will hopefully be good enough.

Deb

My skin has been thickened by my writing friends. I do hope I wasn't a culprit?

I meant it in a positive way. Whenever I get a skin chafing moment, my writing friends provide the thickening cream.

How would I know if I was the wannabee who everyone else could hear singing out of tune, yet I could only hear the sound of a songbird

That is EXACTLY the thought that used to plague me when I watched programmes like the X Factor in the time when I was trying to get published. Terrifying.

So when I recently looked at some stories I'd written 13 years ago and could see how weak they are, I was concerned that, because I thought then that they were good, that I am still way off and just can't see it myself.

Quite the opposite. It shows how much you - and your stories - have sharpened up.

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I think self-doubt is the constant companion of every creative person, even successful ones. Is it brilliant, or is it garbage? I don't know, I don't know, I don't bloody know . . .

I agree it meant I have improved since then, Words, but the worry was because I then thought I knew what I was doing, and can now see that I was wrong. What if I am still wrong?

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I guess the biggest problem with creative work of any kind is that its value is subjective. Mathematicians know if they're getting it right or not. (Well, actually, that's a bit simplistic... but you know what I mean...)

I then thought I knew what I was doing, and can now see that I was wrong. What if I am still wrong?

This ties in with EmmaD's current 'Who is that judge' blogpost - the seeking for perfection. Ideally I suppose you (by which I mean me as well) should be glad that you DO have the capacity, the open-mindedness for improvement.
But I agree, if you let it, such thoughts can bring you to a stuttering halt.

Yes, it's what I can't see, that scares me. So I spook myself by thinking it's all crap.

the worry was because I then thought I knew what I was doing, and can now see that I was wrong. What if I am still wrong?

But don't you have the knowledge and writerly wisdom to know that you are, at least, 'righter' than you used to be? As EmmaD said somewhere else, nothing's ever perfect. But I completely sympathise, I think any piece of my writing is good or garbage, depending on which was the wind's blowing at the time.

The trick is to control the wind.

Deb, I think that, as Wordsmithreen said, the fact that you can now see things in those stories that you couldn't see then says precisely that you've learnt and got better since then.

And, also, when you're writing something, you have to live inside a kind of bubble of believing in it - having faith that what you want to say, the story you want to tell, is worth saying, and that you can at least more-or-less tell it. Of course you're critical from the inside as you go along ("no, wrong word - what about this - that scene needs to come later") but that's within the bubble, if you like, using
the tools that you have at the time, to write it as well as you can at the time. And you need to believe that it's worth it. That, in the end, is why I think the destructive kind of harsh critiquing is counter-productive as well as unkind, if it damages confidence in whether this piece and you as a writer are worth it.

That's why critiquing should always start from trying to understand what the writer's trying to do - giving them the benefit of the doubt, if you like, and honouring and respecting their desires and goals - before moving on to unpick what it is that isn't working yet.

I know I've told this story before, but back in the Pleistocene era a writing tutor I respected tore a story of mine to shreds. Others loved it, and she loved the other story I'd put into the workshop, but it nonetheless shattered my confidence in that story. I don't actually think that brutal crit was useful at all: all it did was mess with my own sense of what worked and what didn't. It was actually a try-out of voice and suchlike for the next novel, and for two years I was becalmed in not being able to go on with the novel, because what I'd thought was the way to do it was - evidently - not the way to do it at all. Two years later, that scene became everyone's favourite scene in ASA, without a word changed in response to that crit: it did all harm and no good. (Plenty of words changed in response to other feedback, obviously, including my own self-feedback, as it were)

I think you have to let go of the X-factor fear, because that too is all about being judged, and sometimes judgement is appropriate, and sometimes it isn't. If instead of setting up those souls up for derision, we derided all the people too cowardly to throw their heart and soul into something by applying to the X-factor...

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Crossed with you, Wordsmithereen.

I do agree about the wind. But since you can feel so differently about a piece which hasn't changed, I think one thing that tells you is that, actually, how you feel about it is all about your state of mind/morale/self-esteem/confidence that day, and not necessarily very much to do with the story's actual merit.

I used to say, and it's true, that when I've had a rejection, every shop window makes me look fat. And on days when I'm feeling low about other stuff, I'm more sure that my writing's not good.

All you can do is do your best to get distance from the writing and read it as if it wasn't yours. And to read and think in terms of specifics: does this scene work? does this sound like John? is that paragraph a bit long? is this description too bald?

If you keep it specific, there's less room for the global doubts - Ann Lamott's chattering white mice - to creep in and start distorting your perceptions.

A commenter on that blog post "Who is the judge" has posted this quote from Anne Enright:

"You have no confidence? No one who is any good has any confidence. So tell me, what makes your particular lack of confidence so special?"

Crikey Moses ... for Anne Enright to be saying that ...