Asking and Receiving Advice & Criticism:

Asking and Receiving Advice & Criticism:

When I was young I was a very shy girl that worried a lot about what others thought of me. This is not because I was a vain person. It was more that I didn’t want to let anyone down. I wanted to make sure that I was meeting everyone’s expectations and was not disappointing them in someway. Having this kind of personality made it difficult for me to ask others for advice or for their opinion about something that I was doing or something that I had created. It also meant that when someone voluntarily told me that they had some criticism about me, or what I was doing, or what I had created, I took it very personally and was very emotional about it. Even if it was constructive criticism I still had a hard time swallowing it.
(below is a picture of shy little me). 👧

As an adult I had to learn the hard way, (through experiences), how to have a thicker skin and be okay with who I am and what I do. Only now, in my thirties, am I able to say if someone doesn’t like something about me, “Ehhh…(shoulder shrug), that’s their opinion they’re welcome to it. It won’t stop me from being who I am.” Learning to be comfortable with who you are is difficult and it takes time. But now, I am at a place in my life where I know when I am feeling stuck about an issue and when I need to reach out to someone or multiple people for help. And when they tell me what they think, I am now comfortable enough to do what they suggest if I agree or say “thank you” and do something else if I do not agree with their assessment or criticism.

I feel that this growth has been essential to my success in business and in my experience as an author. In the past I had a hard time sharing my writing with others and asking what they thought. But I learned that sharing is an extremely important part of writing. When you write, you are writing for an audience after all, and while it is true that you cannot please everyone, obviously you want your writing to resonate with some audience. You hope that some people will love your characters and story as much as you do, so you want to make your stories the best they can be, (at least I do.) When I was writing the first two Elven Quest books, I got to the end and had over 1000 pages. I heard a lot from my first readers that it was too long and too detailed, especially in the beginning. So, I had to work during the editing process mostly to delete some sections. Deleting parts of the book was difficult. I wanted to make sure that I kept the integrity of the story. The most important thing that I learned though was that different readers had really good ideas of things that I could change or add that I hadn’t even thought of. By the time I finished the books, I felt positive about the changes I had made and I knew that the books were the best they can be. I was grateful to those readers for sending some creative ideas for changes my way.

Currently, I am in the process of writing my third novel and yet again, I am stuck. This time I feel that the story is too short and lacking in excitement in some areas. I have been helping to mentor and edit another writer’s work. He and I have formed a good relationship where we can bounce writing ideas off of one another. So when I got to the point where I had re-read my story several times and still couldn’t figure out what to add and where, I mentioned this to this other writer. We discussed the type of story that it is the plot, the characters, and how much I wanted to add. Yet again, I was pleasantly surprised and glad that I asked someone for help because he gave me a few suggestions that I think will make a big difference. Now the next step will be to implement those changes. 😉

The point of this particular blog, dear readers, is to make you think about yourself. How do you handle asking for advice or help from others? How do you react when others give their opinion of you or your creations? If those opinions are negative in nature, how do you handle that? And if you struggle with this like I did, what are some steps you can take to be more comfortable putting yourself out there and hearing others opinions? I know for me, this took time and a conscious choice to keep stepping outside of my comfort zone and ask about what others thought. In fact, my conscious hope and plan for this year is to have more connectivity. What I mean by this is that I want to open myself up to communicate more with others and learn from them, as well as help to teach or mentor them by sharing my passions and thoughts and experiences. I think that only through communicating with ourselves and with others can we learn and grow as people. What do you think dear readers? I am going to take steps daily to remember my connectivity goal and in some way try to connect to someone new daily. In the meantime, I will take what I’ve learned from others and use the ideas that they helped to inspire and keep following my passion. I hope you will all work on your own goals and follow your passions dear readers. Until next time and as always remember, writing=happiness ;).