I have read several articles today from a few different writers about how to deal with negative criticism on their work. These articles were on different types of writing not just poems, short stories, books, but musicians as well. It seems by these articles, whether it is true or not, that females did not take negative criticism as well as some men did. This one male writer said that he learned from all negative criticism, and that maybe there was some hidden truth in some of the critique regardless of how harse it was. This could also be because men are more or less into competition, or are sports oriented. Let’s face it, many male musicians are not exactly the jock type. Some are of course, but as a rule guys in band practise in school are usually not football players. Maybe some writers are more sensitive than others. I don’t think it has as much to do with gender as it does with what a person wants to express. Some writers want to write as I do, to feel the words and express emotion. I should be clear though as I wrote in my previous article, harse criticism is not the proper way to critique someones work.

Anyway, one of the articles was about a woman who said she did not take negative criticism well at all, and internalized it. Women in general she said did this, and I can believe this being a woman as well. Though I am not as sensitive as I appear. My writing is a way for me to get in touch with a more sensitive side, that I keep to myself. My problem with negative criticism is that, it is not as much an attack on my character as an attack on the emotions, that I felt at the time that I wrote the piece. I feel that when I write a poem, or a story that, I have written something creative, and want to share it with friends in hopes that something that I had written resonates with them as well. So to keep this sensitivity to criticism at bay. I decided to use a trick that I learned in my creative writing classes. This tip was to keep your writing for over six months to a year, or even a month, then look over it, improve it, and then publish it. In other words, if a piece is personal, and hot off the press so to speak, hold it back for a while, so if by chance you get a harse comment it won’t offend you. Especially, if you are in a semi hostile writing group.

A man in another one of the articles that I read was talking about the Internet, as a hostile place that you have to get a “thick skin” to survive here. He talked about a musician on the Internet that pulled his Twitter account because of the hostile comments that he got on his music. This goes along with what the woman in her article said as well. That she felt her writing was her baby that she felt she gave birth to it. I have felt that way about a piece that I had written before, like it was my creation, which actually it is a brainchild that you birthed. So, holding your piece nurturing it, and holding it closely to you for awhile might not be a bad idea. If in fact, you still feel the connection to it emotionally. Then, let your brainchild leave the nest and flourish.