Criticize Me

When I sat down to write my first novel, I was alone.

From the first word to the last, I developed an intimate relationship with the story and swam deep in the waters of my own thoughts.

When I finished the book, I wasn’t relieved or proud or exhausted. I was still hungry. I simply thought to myself, “what’s next?”

My biggest fear at the beginning of this project was that I would obsess over every piece of minutia within the book, making it impossible for my little novel to graduate past the stage of a word document taking up storage on my computer.

So, I released it into the hands of another set of eyes.

I found an outside reader. Someone that wasn’t related to me, someone I could trust to read and criticize with a discerning point of view. I knew then, even as I sweat bullets pressing “send,” that I needed a second opinion on how I could make this book the very best it could possibly be.

This week I received the editorial notes that the reader had made and, for the first time in the editing process, I felt that tingly excitement. I read over the notes and paused. It was unreal. It was as if the reader had put himself in my writer brain and articulated clearly thoughts that had been swimming blindly in the murky depths of the analytical side of my thinking. Enlightening. Illuminating. A clear path surfaced and I could not be more grateful.

I was prepared for criticism. But I was prepared for criticism as if it were a nasty word or a terrible experience that one must endure to succeed in this business. What I was unprepared for was how great criticism would make me feel. It wasn’t a heart break or a depression trigger as I had anticipated. Instead, it was as if someone had whispered the secret to success in my ear.

“Do this, make this correction, rethink this…go here and you will find all that which you seek.”

Advice to you, fellow writers – open yourself up to criticism. Take it in, embrace it. Understand that it is not an indictment or a put-down. If done correctly, it can be a map of sign posts guiding you to the place you already knew existed but didn’t know how to get there.

For now, I’m riding this high and trying to control my itchy fingers to get back to my novel. I’ve got some work to do.