I've been told I'm not good at taking criticism. Granted, the person who told me this has a habit of phrasing things in a way that is downright hurtful. English isn't his first language, so I'm not sure he alway understands the message his words imply as well as what they actually mean. I like to think I'm good at taking rejection. At least on the surface. Underneath, I know I am absolutely terrible at it. Which is why being told I'm bad at taking criticism upsets me. I'd like to think I have a good poker face.
Since querying is one of my goals for this year, I've decided to prepare myself for rejection. Whenever I do my holiday shopping, I always buy myself presents as well. This year, I'm not letting myself have them. I'm wrapping them up and putting them in the closet until I need them to cheer me up. Now I have a reason to almost look forward to getting rejected.
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I love the idea of giving yourself presents! But even more I love the idea of putting yourself out there to be rejected... so many people can't even make it that far. Of course, I'm hoping for lots of unwrapped presents for you left over at the end of 2011. :)
ReplyDeleteDon't know if this little bit of advice will help, but it eased worries I had about getting my personal work some scrutiny...And that is try hard to not get attached to what you write. I get that personal writings are and should be perfect because that is how you put it down when you did, but a bit of disassociation can help with worries about scrutiny, because if there is anything wrong, later it won't be so hard to change. If you commit to what you have written, to me it seems as if it is more difficult. I wrote what I wrote, and I think it is perfectly fine, but somebody else might not, so if it does come down to a change is needed. Making that change will be just a little bit easier, because I might think well that is much better than before. Whereas if I had committed, I will probably always despised the change because I thought it was perfect before. Flexibility can be a godsend.
ReplyDeleteI like your presents to yourself idea. :) I don't remember you being bad at rejection, at least any more than normal people.
ReplyDeleteI had my fair share of agent rejections--I didn't take it personally. If I did I'd have jumped off a bridge or something. Then at a conference I bumped into an agent at lunch, we talked...two months later I had an agent. How I stumbled into that is beyond me. When it came time to submitting my young adult novel, we took a good ten rejections. Each came back with varying reasons why the aquiring agent passed, but again, I didn't take it personally. They weren't attacking my work. Didn't say I should go jump off a bridge. But their comments about the manuscript led me to re-think portions, especially when similar comments started coming in. TJTHEBOSS is correct by saying you need a healthy dose of disassociation regarding your work. Simply be open-minded, realize a book is never "finished," and keep putting yourself out there.
ReplyDeleteThanks everyone. I'm working on recognizing that evaluations of my work aren't evaluations of my self. I'm excited to start querying this year. I still want to take one more pass at my manuscript, though. I'm pretty good about rewriting based on feedback. I'm mostly nervous about flat out rejections. I occasionally have to reject people at work so I know it's nothing personal, but still. My poor ego. :)
ReplyDeleteI love this idea! What a wonderful way to help you through the process.
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