Copyblogger recently posted an arti­cle on how to han­dle crit­i­cism. This is a sub­ject that, as a cre­ative per­son, I have spent a lot of time think­ing about and strug­gling with, so I thought I’d talk about their points tonight and exam­ine them from my own point of view.

1. Enjoy it.

Criticism isn’t always bad in my expe­ri­ence (although it def­i­nitely tends to have neg­a­tive con­no­ta­tions).  It’s mostly good for you, but some­times it leaves a bad taste in your mouth.  Basically, crit­i­cism is broc­coli.  I’ve never been one to enjoy broc­coli, and crit­i­cism is some­thing that you don’t nat­u­rally join.  Those with frag­ile self-esteem have a ten­dency to take any kind of crit­i­cism neg­a­tively.  The key is gen­er­ally to try and keep it imper­sonal. The crit­i­cism is not about you, it’s about the work, and remem­ber, you are not your work (that com­ment is directed at me as much as it is my gen­eral audi­ence, let me tell you…).

So yeah, I can agree with this point, if you can man­age it.  Remind your­self that crit­i­cism is an impor­tant com­po­nent of get­ting bet­ter, when it’s con­struc­tive.    And if’ it’s ter­ri­ble crit­i­cism, try and laugh about how bad it is.  I actu­ally find that the more hyper­bolic neg­a­tive crit­i­cism is, the fun­nier it is for me, and the eas­ier it is to enjoy it.

On the Escape Pod blog, we have one com­menter who never, ever says any­thing pos­i­tive.  Sometimes this com­menter is on-target, but the way this com­menter says every­thing is clas­sic Troll Class One.  I was irri­tated with it at first, but over time, I’ve come to find this com­menter pretty funny.  Their act never changes though.

2. Nobody’s right.

Yeah, every­thing is sub­jec­tive, blah blah blah.  This is per­haps true when we’re talk­ing about sub­jec­tive mat­ters, but when it comes to facts, that’s baloney.  Someone is right and some­one is wrong.  Generally, it is you that is wrong, and it is Nick Mamatas that is right.    In fact, that should be the main corol­lary to this point.  “Nobody’s right, except Nick Mamatas.”  You can dis­agree with this, but I don’t rec­om­mend that you actu­ally argue the point.  You will lose.

3. Some peo­ple just won’t get it.

Copyblogger makes the point that some peo­ple are “just idiots.”  This is true, but I would con­sider this an obser­va­tion of last resort.  If the crit­i­cism com­pletely misses the point, there are two pos­si­bil­i­ties (or more, but two basic ones).  One is that the per­son mak­ing the crit­i­cism has a read­ing com­pre­hen­sion below the level you wrote (is
“an idiot” is a bit strong).  The other pos­si­bil­ity is that you didn’t do a very good job of con­vey­ing it. Me, I always take crit­i­cism seri­ously and eval­u­ate it for pos­si­ble value.  Unless it’s full of gram­mar and spelling mis­takes.  Those are pretty easy to ignore, because, yeah, some peo­ple are idiots.  They make them­selves very easy to spot most of the time.  Except for stealth idiots, like Chance from Being There.  More on them some other time.

4. Look for a new idea.

I really like this point.  Examine crit­i­cism for an idea you’ve never had before.  I’ve failed to do this almost every time my work has received crit­i­cism when it comes to writ­ing.    I often get stuck in a think­ing rut and my ruts get so deep that it’s hard to see over the sides of them.  This is because I can be a real self-centered prick from time to time (hope­fully not very often these days).  As much as any­thing else, this point serves as a reminder to offer at least a mod­icum of respect to the ideas of oth­ers.  Just because you didn’t have the idea doesn’t mean it has no value.  (Again.  Talking to me here.)

5. Let it go.

This is the hard­est aspect of Copyblogger’s advice for me.   Some peo­ple let crit­i­cism roll off them like water off a duck’s back.  Criticism often sticks to me like a very well-aimed spit­ball.   I have a very dif­fi­cult time shak­ing it off even if I don’t believe it. This prob­lem prob­a­bly resides in a shaky self-esteem more than any­thing else.  I am eager at times to believe the neg­a­tive thigns said about my work and myself.    That’s a per­sonal prob­lem, but it is eas­ier said than done for some of us to just let it go.  I know enough to let my inabil­ity to let it go remain a per­sonal issue.  What you should rarely do, in my opin­ion, is respond to crit­i­cism that you can’t let go.    Down that path lies mad­ness and a dam­aged reputation.

People with unshak­able self-esteem and belief in them­selves are eas­ily the most suc­cess­ful peo­ple in cre­ative endeav­ors from my expe­ri­ence.   They don’t get knocked down by crit­i­cism and they def­i­nitely know how to let it go.  If I had to pick one per­son­al­ity trait that I would like to develop to make me a bet­ter cre­ative per­son, it would be a true and deep belief in myself.  I’m work­ing on it, but I know that it’s not always there, and so I have a ways to go.

I had some jus­ti­fi­ably harsh and unhappy crit­i­cism on some of my work wait­ing for me when I woke up this morn­ing.    I was let­ting it really get to me at first, until I stum­bled upon this post over at Copyblogger, and it reminded me of the lessons I have learned in the past.  I took what I could from it, dis­agreed with some of it (but under­stood the per­spec­tive of it), but ulti­mately decided that the best thing to do was to let it go and move on and try not to make the same mis­takes in the future in future work.

Obsessing over your mis­takes and your crit­i­cism doesn’t help.  That’s the most impor­tant les­son for me and arti­cles like this serve to help drive that les­son home again and again.

Tagged as: copyblogger, criticism, My Writing, self-esteem