There are times (well for me at least) when someone criticises my writing, I tend to get defensive straight away. “What would they know?,” I think and often will instantly dismiss whatever the criticism was.
However, I have learnt that if I had given myself the gift of time to consider the comments after the heat of the first emotion has diminished, I would have found in the comments some constructive help in improving my writing and creativity.
I’ve pondered about this and believe the reason creative infopreneurs and writers, like any creative artists, tend to get so defensive about criticism, constructive or otherwise, is that our writing is an offering of a part of ourselves.
It has been formed by tapping into our own creative energy, and is therefore a personal creation. We have a fondness for the words we have chosen to use, and belief in our craft. It’s why as a writer we will often find it very difficult to proofread our own work.
We can’t see our own errors, as easily as we can see someone else’s.
That’s why giving yourself some time to calmly consider whether there is any worth in the criticism offered will help you to become a better writer. It will also boost your creativity.
If you do need to proofread your own work, it also really helps if you give yourself some time to come back to it with a fresh mind. You need to be able to distance yourself from the creative writing process and edit your work, as if someone else actually wrote it.
The easiest way to do this is to do something else in between the writing and proofreading processes. Give yourself some time to come back to it with a clear mind that is not still involved in the creative writing process.
Because writing is a creative process, it is often linked to our moods, how we feel on the day, and responding to situations we find ourselves in as authors.
Some authors have used grief as a catalyst to write a great novel, as Anne McCaffrey did when her father died. The Ship Who Sang was her first real novel and was written in the six months after the death of her father, as she subliminated her grief into her writing.
While this may work in some cases, in others it’s better to give yourself time to distance yourself from your emotions in order to write creatively. If you receive a rejection of your work, don’t make everything else you write in that day appear to be written in anger or disappointment.
These are not the emotions that help you to tap into your creative side.
Instead, if you find yourself reacting in anger, or dwelling on something you perceive as negative that has happened, you may be better off doing something other than writing for a while.
Give yourself the gift of a half an hour to think about the problem that is haunting you, and come up with an appropriate action plan to deal directly with the issue. Then, when you have calmed down and are no longer responding to your emotions, you will find your mind is clear and able to focus on your cr
eative writing again.
Give yourself the gift of time to think when you need it, time to recover from the heat and passion of negative emotions, and time to clear your mind to be able to focus creatively on your writing.
This is the last article for T=Time. Next time I’ll be looking at S = Stretch yourself, which is the final letter in CREATIVE HABITS. Until then.
photo credit: redstamp.com
