Today on the Snarkology blog, Judy Ann Davis shares her tips on how to follow your writing dreams while understanding constructive criticism, weathering bad reviews, and adapting as a writer – without crippling your creativity or ego.
I’ll share two really important observations from her essay:
Some people think that reading cereal boxes makes them qualified book critics.
Always get a second opinion – if not a third, a fourth, etc. – after a bad critique.
Davis points out that after reading one agent’s harsh rejection letter, she set aside her novel for years. Until other sources of validation (in her case, many successful and well-reviewed short stories) prompted her to once more approach publishers.
This happens so often with new writers. We tend to lend too much importance to the wrong critics, and not enough to the right ones.