Putting my head above the parapet

Over the last couple of weeks I've received several savage reviews of stories of mine, stories I love and really believe in.  This is the downside of putting our heads above the parapet and showing our work to the world. VWhen someone tells you that they cannot believe in the premise of your novel at all, this is a grievous wound.  It goes straight to the heart.  And sometimes we get do shot by critiquers.  Badly shot.  And the words wound us and go straight to the heart.

But sometimes there's more than just a comment on our work going on in these critiques.  In one of those savage reviews, I sensed jealousy, and perhaps even a sense of competition from the critiquer.  This was another writer who had not had her novel published yet.  It's coming out later this year, published by a small press I've never heard of.  And that makes me wonder how good she is as a writer.  I didn't get to critique her work in return, so I can't judge.  But I wonder.

If I were a beginner writer that level of savage criticism might well stop me writing for ever.  But I'm not,  I've been writing for forty years, and spent almost as long putting my head above the parapet.  I've taught creative writing for over a decade, and I'm now Chairwoman of Havant and District Writers' Circle.  And in all my workshops and in the Circle I set rules for feedback.  I ask people to say what they like about a piece first, then move on to what they didn't like about it.

There is always something good about a piece of writing.  I've never yet come across writing without one spark of something good to it.  And yet that was the critique I received.  Nothing was good, she didn't believe in my premise, my characters were stupid...  The critique was the most disrespectful I've ever received, and I can't help thinking of this critiquer as a jaded, cynical 'I've seen it all before' woman.  How joyless her life must be if she criticises everything in that manner.

There's only one way to heal from such a wound.  Remind yourself that this is one person's opinion, and that not everybody will agree with that view.  If we want to grow and learn as writers we have to put our heads above the parapet, but we also have to gain the wisdom to sort the wheat from the chaff.  I'll heal from my current wounds, continue putting my head above the parapet, and keep on learning and risking new wounds.

Wendy Metcalfe is the author of Panthera: Death Spiral and Panthera : Death Song and the short story collection Otherlives.  Find out more about her on www.wendymetcalfe.com