Growing Thicker Skin

blacbird said:

One of the surest ways to grow a thick skin as a writer is to have the first bullet out of the muzzle kill the big bear.

caw

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Good point.

My advice is always to screw the concept of "thicker skin".

I am stupidly sensitive. And every rejection I get hurts profoundly (and I've now been doing this for a little while ). I'm never going to have skin thick as hide. I know it. And for a while I would get mad at myself for being too sensitive.

Then I realised that I don't need a thick skin. All I need is my drive. And when it comes to ambition and drive, I have that in spades. Also stubbornness. So it doesn't matter how many rejections I get, I don't let any of them prevent me from pursuing my dream.

So. When I get rejected, I feel the sting. I cry. I rant to friends. I take the time to process the emotion and let it pass through me. Then. I move on to the next thing. The key for me is not to bottle up what I'm feeling, nor add to the feeling by beating myself up for feeling. If I feel what I feel, then I'm good to go by the next day, sometimes the next hour.

Heck on the phone sobbing to my agent who had just said we had to part ways, I was thinking of who of my contacts to call the second I hung up so I could get a new agent. Yes I was distraught. But I didn't let it affect solving the problem.

So I say feel the feeling. Don't make it about being tough, or cynical or whatever. Make it about being professional. Don't let anything sway you from your goals, and so long as you have that attitude the rest of it, all the frustration, fear, and angst? They won't hold you back even if you feel them.

It isn't that you need a thick skin. You need a perspective that allows you to submit your work and see it as a natural part of the process. I was praised recently by someone I greatly respect in the writing industry. She told me, "I'm glad to see you so willing to receive critiques on your work, it's the earmark of a professional writer."

She went on to critique a short of mine and though I haven't changed my story the way she said, her advice was invaluable. I use it when I weigh my writing because while our styles are different, she had an insight that I'd overlooked and I'm better for it.

You've gotten great responses from others here so I'll just add one more tidbit. When someone comes back with a critique that attacks you and not your writing, ignore them out of hand. Nothing of value can come of it. Watch others who give critiques and when you see that they give valuable advice, seek them out for help.

And always be humble enough to be teachable. Be grateful and mean it.

These perspectives naturally bolster you up with a great deal of self esteem and confidence which is far more protective than a thick skin. To me thick skin can be indicative of insensitivity and as a writer that can be death to your ability to write stories that ring true.

Cassiopeia said:

She told me, "I'm glad to see you so willing to receive critiques on your work, it's the earmark of a professional writer."

.

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God, I hate that attitude. It simply isn't true. Or wasn't until very recently.

Hi, everyone

I know how you feeling when it comes to growing a thicker skin, for many years i didn't believe anything would come of my writing plus my mom didn't think writing is hard work. But now thanks to my hubby and best friend and my mom after she read one of my story they all think i should show the world so I looked around and found Blood Words and i will be going to that at the end of May. I can't wait, i have enter one contest and another one through some place else so we will see

Jamesaritchie said:

God, I hate that attitude. It simply isn't true. Or wasn't until very recently.

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why would you hate something that is actually a viable skill in becoming a professional writer?

Being willing to take a critique and not be all pissy about it is sign of professionalism.

Look at Query Letter Hell, and choose a couple of queries that have more than one version posted.

There have been a scant few times where the revised wasn't as good as the original, but in those cases, the critiquers have been very good at saying so. Most of the time--far and away--the queries have improved dramatically.

I've gone to QLH with my queries and posted chapters in other sections of SYW, and each time, I've felt like they left far stronger than they came in.

James had an unsatisfactory experience with his critique group. Maybe they just weren't that good at spotting a saleable work, despite being published themselves. Maybe they were simply pointing out everything that could possibly be an issue, no matter how minor. Or maybe they were just being catty. Who the hell knows? The moral of the story was that he didn't listen to them, got published, and never looked back.

I say that was AWESOME. You should absolutely ignore critiques that you don't agree with--that is, so long as you've taken the time to absorb and reflect and taken an honest second look at your work first.

It's those critiques that you DO agree with...the ones you read and think, "Oh, crap, they're right..." that are valuable to you. The others you can ignore (preferably with a polite "Thank you".)

But in the end, you have to be like James and decide what value, if any, the critiques have for you, and then trust in your own vision for your story.

I don't see any conflict at all in what he's saying and in what everyone else has said.

M.Austin said:

I have to say that I'm probably going to have to say screw thicker skin in general. I can't force myself to have low expectations because I've only worked so damn hard to become published one day. And I think naturally I just care way too much about everything.

I definitely envy those with thick skin, though.

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I have always been thin-skinned, and although it's become heavily calloused over the years, I know I will always be a bit sensitive. Harsh critiques about my writing are still an Achilles' heel for me, and there have been times when I've had those brief moments of "I can't do this so why am I bothering?" There was even a point when I did try to make myself stop writing a couple of years ago after a friend said some overly harsh things (and it was the sort of criticism that wasn't terribly constructive looking back on it), but it lasted for all of maybe a week or two and then I was coming up with new ideas. So, when I do get to the point where I'm putting my writing out there for critique beyond close friends, I know there'll be some tears and some anger, but in the end I can't stop writing. I just won't let myself because it's too much fun.

So yeah, screw the idea that you have to develop thicker skin. All you really need is the drive and the desire to keep getting back on that proverbial horse no matter how much you fall off. Well, that and decent grammar.

I don't give a what. My skin is as hard as polished topaz,baby.

I take crits well,because they actually help. People who are genuinely interested critique well and help so much. They aren't trying to tear you down or hurt your feelings. Also,if you put your work out there,it is guaranteed that somebody will hate it.


I've also experienced the other side aka people who tear a work down just for the pleasure of it. You can quickly tell who these unpleasant folk are and avoid them.

If you say you hate my work,I smile and wish a hoodoo hex upon you.

*Just kidding*

I don't like Shakespeare.
Seems like a random tangent, but if I can not like Shakespeare, Shakespeare, for dog's sake, I'm quite happy with the possibility that there might be one or two people out there who might not like my writing, deluded souls that they are.


Which is all a very roundabout way of saying, 'different strokes for different folks'. Not everyone can like what you write, no matter how good you are.

Jamesaritchie said:

God, I hate that attitude. It simply isn't true. Or wasn't until very recently.

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Anne?

Anne Rice?

Is that you?

I'd also add, don't worry about what you feel in reaction to something. You can't control your feelings. Don't feel guilty if you feel hurt and rejected when the critique arrives. Having those feelings doesn't make you unprofessional. What you do afterwards is what counts. Allow yourself to have the feelings and then move on from them.

Also, in many ways it's a good sign that you do feel bad when someone criticises something you wrote. That shows it matters to you, and if it matters enough to upset you then it matters enough to try to improve it.

M.Austin said:

How exactly to I grow thicker skin? Is there a particular way you look at it in order to make sure you don't get your feelings hurt?

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Probably still going to happen anyway. I generally am not bothered by critiques. But at the last one, I was ganged up on by people who attacked me for writing in omniscient viewpoint (not because the writing was done poorly; there were few comments on actual writing). It was so bad that I had to take six weeks off the book to see things objectively again (and I still went through and thanked everyone, though that was all I did). Sometimes it is going to catch you off guard.

These are some things that may help:

1. After you get the critique, let it sit for a while. Sometimes there is an initial reaction to the comments, but once you read it again, you'll wonder why you reacted like that in the first place. Time will give you a chance to read the comments more objectively.

2. Remember that just because someone makes a comment--good or bad--doesn't mean it's a call for action, or even that there's a problem in the story. Not every one is right, and sometimes people will react badly to something in your work that has nothing to do with the story (see #1). When I was cowriting, cowriter asked a romance writer to read our book. She got seventy pages in, stopped, and wrote four pages of scathing comments. Her kindest words were "Your prose is clean." The first thing I noticed when I read her comments was that she was angry. Very angry. I set the comments down and reread them the next day. It was obvious she really hated the book. We thanked her, but didn't use any of the comments. About six weeks later, cowriter figured out why she hated the book. Turned out she was vehemently anti-gun, and we were a Civil War novel with soldiers. Kind of hard to avoid the guns. On page seventy, a character pulled a gun. That's what set her off. Had nothing to do with us.

3. Always, always take yourself and your book into account first. You're the one writing it, and you're the one who's name goes on it. Critiquers are not always right, and sometimes they get it really wrong. I wouldn't even go by the 'if three critiquers comment on it, then it needs to be fixed' rule because you'll find an exception to it where everyone is wrong. Always weigh in all comments with brutal practicality. Is this right for what I intend for my book and is it right for the way I write? If you're not sure, see #1. You can always come back to comments.

4. When you receive comments, note the problem, but find your own way to solve it. Some people will explain to you how to fix it, and that may in itself get a reaction because it may be the wrong way to fix it for you. And again, when in doubt, wait.

The biggest thing in this is that you need to control the time because that will give you a different perspective and give you time to think. The worst thing you can do is rush into make changes immediately because someone else said them, and the changes are really wrong for your story. You always have to respect yourself and your opinions first and foremost.