Category: Self-Validation and Resilience

Criticism: How to Take What People Say

Criticism is normal in the writer’s world. How you take it is the key to learn and improve. A writer must learn how to take criticism.

Criticism is normal for everyone. To the writer it is part of the path. Writers swim in a sea of thought. Our work is to clarify those thoughts so that we can write something remotely readable and hopefully useful to our readers. That is hard enough by itself. It becomes problematic because everyone has their own inner critic they have to battle every step of the way. The last word is typed and the deed is done. We have taken the work as far as we can. We might be ready for a reader or editor to look at our work or it might be time to publish. Either way we are opening up the doors to external criticism and possible embarrassment.

External criticism can be either good or bad. How we take it and why is the danger . Whenever a writer takes external criticism or embarrassment to heart, we yield control of our minds and our self-worth. Any criticism must be worth it. It must have real value for us and our work. Destructive criticism is less than worthless. We waste precious mental resources and time when our work is governed by unuseful or harmful criticisms.

A writer can control and even eliminate such waste by limiting how open our mindset is when we validate our critics comments. We want to filter those thoughts rather than just accept them. The professional minded writer knows what to take to heart and what to ignore.

Your Critic’s Mind

Often frustrated people say things to vent their own feelings when they are not able to achieve a given goal themselves. A seasoned pro will ignore this prattle. Invalid criticism is only jealousy spit out by someone who cannot achieve the same kind of success they see in others who are busy moving forward. It’s the crabs in the bucket part of life.

Ego driven criticism is far more than just venting. It can lead to crippling mental afflictions that prevent us from attaining many of the life goals we set for ourselves. Such criticism affects everything from our fitness to getting married or advancing in our careers. It is never benign. That is why writers must learn to deal with criticism the right way.

Pro Mindset

The professional writer has developed the mental habit to evaluate all criticism when it is first encountered, then is able react appropriately. This mental shift to filter out harmful criticism is what marks the professional writer’s mindset from the armature writer. A pro writer takes the time to kill off anything that would weaken his efforts.

An excellent place to start is to demystify what we do. When we humble the ego nature of our work, we view it as just work. Writing is no longer some aloof artistic endeavor feeding our personal ego. No longer is it our art, it becomes just works. Work alone brings the creativity and validity we seek. In this way the critic’s opinions cannot hurt personally because the work itself provides the only validity that is needed. When work is no longer part of us we can more easily see if a given criticism is harmful or useful to the work itself without feelings of personal pain hindering our vision.

Pro Process

The writer who wants to develop the professional mindset uses a tough minded frame of reference. He banishes both hate and hope from the work. The only thought is to advance on his goal. It is very much the same mindset that the warrior poet Archilochus had in mind.

“Be brave, my heart. Plant your feet and square your shoulders to the enemy. Meet him among the man-killing spears. Hold your ground. In victory do not brag; in defeat, do not weep.”

Archilochous reminds us to not act reflexively with emotion like pride, fear or anger. We are encouraged to control and govern our emotional reactions with positive action. Do not to take the spears as personal attacks. A developed mind will not allow space for any outside influence to rule in their stead.

Criticism Do Not’s

Do not allow the negative influence of critics to break your belief in the value of your work. That road will only fritter away your time in anger instead of work. You will get zero writing done looking to prove anything to a critic. Do not justify anything or try to find reason, even in your own mind. It’s a trap. Just keep your mind on your current shot. Let those criticisms flow past.

Any kind negative emotional response needs to be shot down. The criticism is not a sign or some kind of judgment of the gods either. Also not allowed are feelings that something is out to unjustly get you be it god and heaven or just karma. That is just your critic using those outside influencers to reinforce its efforts. Ignore them.

 What to Do’s

Remember you are the sovereign supreme in the moment. No blow or act from outside you can stop your focused action in the moment. Your job is to do the work before you. It remains in your power to do that work no matter what some outside voice has judged you, your work or anything else.

Remain compassionate with yourself. The writer defines his own reality. Other realities do not matter in your process.

Steven Pressfield

“Tomorrow morning the critic will be gone, but the writer will still be there facing the blank page. Nothing matters that you keep working. Short of a family crisis or the outbreak of World War III, the professional shows up, ready to serve the gods.” The War of Art, pg. 92-93

A professional mindset uses only the writer’s personal opinion to evaluate the value of his work and himself. As writers we must draw that value from the higher self instead of the ego or other outside sources. Our inner critic uses the negative feedback from those other sources to stall and end our efforts. Do not give those outside voice power to validate you or your work.

A helpful outside critique of any work seeks first to improve you, the work or both. That is valid and valuable. Any criticism that only finds faults with you, your work or both is a clear message that you are dealing with a destructive voice. Ignore it.

Writers Ignore Critics

 Criticism can be a tool to improve our lives, or it can be a destructive force. The more common criticism is envy driven.

What makes even driven criticism so damaging is that the critics’ voices get in the mind. Once there our brain just does what it normally does. It allows those thoughts to join our mental conversation without editing them. Over time those negative thoughts weaken your efforts to advance. It’s helpful to remember that critics are just another monkey trying to set up shop that master mediators have long advised us to ignore. Those voices in your head are cunning and pernicious. They will do anything to shut you down with the “facts”. Without any effort on our part to purge such things, we find ourselves believing those “facts”.

The envy driven criticism is deadly for anyone. The writer must endeavor to recognize it immediately so that it does not setup house in his brain. Know that the critic is actually just spewing vitriol at the very thing he hates more than anything else, someone doing what he lacks the courage and tenacity to do himself.

How to recognize envy

So how to we know we are dealing with vitriol instead of a real effort to help us? The first step is to listen actively. Don’t just passively accept any advice, including what I am saying here. You need to weigh whether or not to follow the advice. Criticism can be painful, embarrassing or make you mad. Get to know what helpful criticism is and what the motivation of the person we are getting the critique from.

Motivation is the major determiner. Every case is different but in general I have found to ask questions about the critique and what the person is trying to do.

Helpful criticism

While someone may comment on a painful point, a really helpful critic will also seek to give you an answer to solve the problem they are talking about. I have found that most honest and open critics might even be a little more harsh because they favor a clear concise and direct approach. A CCD approach is not an excuse to be rude or destructive or personal. In the Marines, I have gotten such straight talk. It is not an uncommon thing. It did take the wind out of my own ego driven sails. That’s not a bad thing. It was never personal, all behavior. Sometimes that’s how we learn how to fix those things we did not even know we needed to fix.

Constructive critics are also likely to ask you lots of questions to understand your point of view to help them make useful suggestions before they comment. Even if they are working on instinct with no knowledge of exactly how to correct the problem, a constructive critic is likely to tell you it’s a feeling or hunch of what works and what does not. They do not claim some great understanding. This gut criticism can help you make better choices for what to change. Useful critics are often humble in their approach because their desire is to help and not feed their egos.

Egocentric comments are often brought from a omniscient position. All knowing all seeing. You are laid to waste with no chance of redemption.

Respect

Your level of respect for the person is also a great indicator of whether to give the guidance any credit. If the critique is from someone you know and respect who is more skilled than you, you likely are being helped. It’s worth it to spend some time getting their feedback on how to go about fixing things. By corollary, someone you do not respect is often mired in their own self interested failures, so they will lash out at you just to vent some of their bile at you.

Criticism is not about you

One of the most important things to note about any criticism is that you are never the topic. Constructive criticism is always about the idea or the action, not about the person. As such you learn not just what is wrong, but also why they think it’s wrong and what they think you can do about it. Again constructive criticism strives to help build you with some suggestions they think can help. It is almost always more of a suggestion than some kind of sage omniscient command. Constructive criticism often aims at try encouraging you to try again and keep going.

Destructive envy driven critics often put the blame for the problem on you as a personal flaw. The issue is explained vague terms as a problem. You can even be advised to quit rather than be humiliated further. If you pay attention you might even see how this builds them up, at least in their own eyes.

What to do about criticism

There are literally a whole list of questions you could use to evaluate any criticism you might ever come across. However, one of the best methods I have run across is to ask yourself: “Will the change make your life better or just validate the critic’s point of view?” If you will be better, implement the change. If it only gives credit to the critic, ignore it.

I have found this question very useful. A truly helpful person is not really getting anything out of their help other than having helped another person. An ego driven critic is just feeding his ego.

One last criticism point.

No matter the type of advice you receive, it is always best to keep your emotions out of it. Avoid trying to be defensive or getting angry. Remember you are the gate keeper. You decide whether the criticism is valid or not. The control here is yours. This allows you to be gracious, so remember your manners and say thank you. Don’t forget to have some compassion for them too. This is kind to the person trying to be helpful. It is infuriating for the critic trying to level you. Either way you win.

Humility Balances Confidence

 Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

Compassion for Others and Yourself

Compassion for others is not something the average writer thinks about much. We are pretty much too wrapped up in our own heads with our writing and our inner critic. As writers our harshest and most destructive critic is the voice in our own heads. We are harsh to the point of total self destruction. That self-sabotage literally kills our ability to write, produce and thrive as writers. That is why learning to be compassionate with ourselves and others is such an important tool for a writer.

Our inner critic will stop our foul work (Its thoughts to be sure.) before we can inflict it upon the unsuspecting world. It will save us from ourselves by beating us up over our failures of the past. We should have a finished book by now. The last effort was terrible. The current work should be buried with a steak through its heart or burned before one of those rotten editors out there can publish it.

Compassion for others the easy way

If we could just blow that critic off, we would all be much better off when sitting down to write. The trouble is this voice rules the show because it is our mental compass of good and bad. We need it and use it for everything. That’s a problem when we are trying to create since the entire point of creation requires experimentation. When you experiment, you get a lot of wrong answers to find the right answers with the possibility of being wrong. You can ask Thomas Edison about his 10,000 wrong answers for a working light bulb. Aside from blind luck, there is no shortcut here.

Another problem with the voice and our writing.

We do have a good use for our critic. It’s our editor for when we fix our rough draft. It tends to do a good job there, as long as we know when to just tell it to shut up and when to call the work done. If we don’t limit it, we will never get started or will edit our work forever. This is probably the biggest reason for having another person read and edit our work.

Once past the final edit even, the voice can strike with vicious attacks to prevent us from shipping off the final manuscript to the publisher or printers.

The critic aims to help

From our inner voice’s view, it is protecting us from evil. It prevents us from feeling this pain we fear so.

At the same moment, this part of us sees the same kind of suffering in others and knows to give them better and wiser critiques of their efforts than we do ourselves. No one would ever say the same kinds of vile comments to others we use on ourselves. It’s human nature to try to be kind, at least kinder than we are to our selves.

We would never look at another person’s work and ask questions like “Well, now how droll is that? This is totally rubbish? Maybe you should just give up?” We try to be constructive with our criticism. We don’t speak to others like that. Why ourselves?

I’ll be blunt.

It’s not alright to speak to ourselves like that. The solution is becoming self aware of what we say to ourselves and then catch the slips. Change the narrative. Think how you would phrase your remarks about the same work to someone else. Then show that same compassion to yourself.

“This is not as good as it can be. That’s OK. This is still a rough draft. It’s not supposed to be perfect yet. I give you permission to really mess this up. Throw lots of spaghetti at the wall. We can clean it up and see what sticks later.”

The key here is to know how to treat another writer, or other struggling artist, is your road map to treating yourself better and finishing your work.

So why compassion for others?

We need compassion for others for many reasons, but as writers, I think we can use how we treat others to start to learn how to really treat ourselves. When we start working to improve how we react more compassionately with others, we find how to be more compassionate to ourselves. We heal ourselves by healing others.

We need to have compassion for others as we write because we can be very demanding and even harsh with our work. Have you ever just complained aloud about how loud someone was being while you were trying to write? How about holding off getting to your pages because other people would bother you, which you of course let out of the bag as a means to get them to leave you alone?

Sure we need to guard our work time, but compassion for others will keep you from ruining your relationships to do it. That understanding of others also means you will be better able to understand yourself. The stuff works the same way the other way round as well. We learn to treat others better by treating ourselves better.

The compassionate way we go about things.

Are we being respectful as we make our demands? Are we polite? Do we really need to become a Shakespearean actor to explain our angst?

How we act is key to being compassionate. We cannot act like we are the center of the universe, or that the target in question be it someone else or ourselves is of little value.

When we talk about compassion and being compassionate we are really talking about understanding the persons involved and convincing them to help us.

Stalling the start

“Drink deep the gathering gloom. Watch lights fade from every room….” I wonder if the Moody Blues were talking to me when I am falling deep into procrastination mode. It certainly fits the mode we get into when we are avoiding our work at all costs.

It is when we are deep in this default behavior that we need self-compassion the most. I have been fortunate to learn a few tricks to motivate a little forward momentum.

Fierce compassion for you

Kristin Neff, Ph.D. argues in Why Women Need Fierce Self-Compassion for us to practice fierce self-compassion. She has three core components for self-compassion. One is a yin and yan based. Neff says, “Yin self-compassion is a loving, connected presence that we can tap into to replace self-judgment with self-acceptance. Yang self-compassion shows up as fierce, empowered truth that allows us to actively cope with life’s challenges.”

Familiar?

Have you ever slid into judgement mode because of decreasing productivity without giving yourself some breathing space to ask yourself why you are procrastinating? Asking yourself questions us to get to the root of the obstacle.

Why was I tempted to write little or totally skip today?

How did my body feel because of it?

Did I journal about why I could not focus on my project?

Those are just a few places to start pulling back the curtain for a clearer view of our mental, emotional, and physical standing. We want to find what is preventing us from writing progress. Writing out, looking at then sitting with those answers is a radical act.

Change the work

I have also found that writing something else is quite helpful. There are some options here. Write about what you are grateful for, a positive reflection, some new ideas, possible future goals, etc… write anything positive and preferably aimed to break through the block.

Compassionate Positive journaling

You can even reframe the procrastination from a positive angle. Take a moment to remember how many times you have worked past your inner critic and his arsenal of fear, self-doubt, worry and so on.

Mantras

Use a mantra. Some of the ones I like “I just need to hit my minimum for the day.” “Crappy is better than nothing.” “I can edit crappy. Nothing means I got nothing.”

Compassion Sets a Low Bar

I use mantras in conjunction with a low bar for the minimum. Sometimes it is just get a few words written, to be precise Five. Yes, five words and if I cannot keep going, I can call it a day. I am done. I have beaten the block and can come back to tomorrow for the win. Setting the vastly shorter minimum fall back standards allows me to pull out when things are just not clicking with a win.

Time

Other times I work with a minimum of time. I like to kick it for at least five minutes. If after five minutes nothing is flying on to the page or I am not in a good flow, I can call it time for a break. I often couple this one with the Pomodoro method for productivity.

I set the timer for 25 minutes. When the time goes off, as long as I have some words on the page, I can quit. I like to keep this stuff flexible so I can use what works. Most of the time I type for 25 minutes, and take a small break. Then I can come back and get another 25 in.

Creating smart habits is key to being kind to ourselves. No one is Superman, but we are pretty great when we give ourselves the compassion we need to perform our best.

Tune up with morning pages

Clearing my mental decks before I set out on the day seems to help prime myself before I get sucked into the negative thinking trap. Even on days when I am stalling a lot, I get words down. Words down is always a win. When really stuck another tool I use is to just mind dump.

It’s similar to the other two tools, but in this case you pull up a blank page and let fly with everything you are thinking about the work or thinking in general. Five minutes of this can give your brain a small break. It can also allow you to vent your evil voice’s spleen. Once written the words lose their power over you. Just knowledge your negative thoughts is magic that allows you tp see the work better.

Three steps to compassion for yourself in the rough draft:

1. Compassion allows messes.

Be messy. You are experimenting. Don’t try to figure out what the end product is. Let the process tell you. Sure you will bounce. That’s good. You might find something you had not considered.

2. Compassion stays open to the possible.

Sure the final draft will need some tough calls. This is the time of the muse. You need to listen more than plot. This holds true if you are pantser or plotter. A good idea is always a good idea, even if you have a plan. Replacing a good idea with a better one is a win.

3. Compassion loves the mess.

Love your work. It does not matter if you don’t really like it or that it’s incomplete or that it lacks polish. Loving the work allows you to enjoy the work. When we enjoy the work, we write better.

My take on compassion

Writers grow with a little compassion as we master the writer’s path. Give some and get some.

Photo by Gary Yost on Unsplash

Humility

Humility is one of those concepts in life that are good for us to achieve and many desire, but it is also one of those desires that even those we tend to see as humble have not done enough of to master.

Writers grapple with staying humble every day we sit down. It springs up in other areas as well. We lack humility in the emotions like the fear we face when we work to produce and publish our thoughts.

So, why is humility so important for a writer?

The simplified answer is that a lack of humility prevents us from writing. The ego centered mind has problerms getting the words out for the thought bouncing around in hour heads. Humility is one of the great assets writers develop over time to consistently get us in our chairs and cracking out verbiage.

Later, the same humility allows us to rend our creations through the editing process till the final work is ready to see daylight. This same humility allows us to let go of the work after a point so we can ship it. We publish or deliver to the client the final work. Then humility comes once more when we get the payoff and feedback from our work. We can now evaluate and understand what to do to get better.

Once our work is finsihed humility shows up one more time to put us back before the blank page to start the process anew. This process eventually defines us as professional writers. We are not defined by money or accolades but rather defined by our love of the work and our devotion to see the work done every day. We show up. Do the work. As Steven Pressfield would say, we are pros.

That is a lot of work for so simple of a virtue.

How we get humility and improve the noble trait

First the good news. You already have humility. The bad news is unless you are working on par with the likes of Steven King, Steven Pressfield, or millions of far less famous but still very professional writers out there, you need to get in the gym and develop some humble muscle.

Even better news. Not only can the humble muscle be developed and far more than you might think yours can, it can be done a million ways. Your hard part is choosing something to work with and then get to work.

Just a couple of humble ideas:

Look to improve yourself.

Working to improve yourself drives out the idea that you are already perfect. As a writer you know you don’t have it all down yet. So get humble and take classes, read books. Learn what you can on your own and with a study partner. Look for things you can use to improve your weaknesses as well as things you did not know you did not know. Make a game out of it. What new nueance can you find in that book you have read last year? Remeber M0rtimer J. Addler advised that to read deeper you needed to read things multiple times, especially when we want to read beyod entertainment for information or for a deeper understanding of that information.

What do you get from the work then?

You find that you can improve. What is more important is that you become firmly entrenched in the philosophy that you can improve. You might one day be as immortal as Scot Adams, JRR Tolkien, or Hemingway, but even those at the peak of fame know the truth of the path to that peak. There is still more mountain to climb for everyone. The more nuances we find within our work the better is can be made. That is where the path leads. The Japanese have a word for this process. They call it Kaizen, never ending improvement. That’s life, the path, writing and everything. Who wants a status quo? That leads to death and decay. Life is growth. To grow you must find what can be improved.

As John Matthew Fox said in an article,

“Humility is not thinking less of yourself. It’s thinking of yourself less.”

I could not say that better.

Praise others.

Praising others gives you the chance to take the view off yourself to see all the worthy aspects of others. When we take the time to praise another for somehting our mind shifts from our own ego driven interests to look at another. For that moment we become selfless.

Let the sunshine in.

Stop hiding your work in a closet. Get it out so sothers can read it. Go to classes and competitions or submit your work to journals, magazines and websites. Even putting something before a writers’ group is good for building your humble muscle.

When other people read and give us feedback our work we gain perspective on our work. We also learn what else is out there and how is applies to our work. When you look at your piece next to others, you can see where you line up and where you need some work more clearly.

Have you missed the mark, maybe bettered it? Get that manuscript submitted and you will know. What will you will find? You are not perfect, but you will also find that others are not either. Your skills are likely far better than you might have thought or worse than you thought. Neither being worse or better matters. Both depend on the feedback or lack of it you have received till now. Now you are playing the game in real time. Now you can see where things sit. So there is no need to stress about being perfect, rather you can now start to work at moving toward perfect.

Avoid the status quo, go with the flow.

As writers we are blessed with a fluid mind full of fantastic ideas. The problem is it is also has a rather loud negative side. We often find ourselves a wash in insecurities and doubt. The self-sabotage is everywhere. This often seems to be alleviated by delusions of grandeur (aka Greatest writer ever!) when we find some nugget of praise come our way. Swimming through this fluid flow is the task we set before ourselves when we first sat down to pen our ideas. It’s a roller coaster ride from on high to down low.

Our only recourse is to learn, as Kipling said

“If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same”

IF – Rudyard Kipling.

When it comes to writing summed up in a poem, Kipling’s If is about as good as it gets. In one short list you have 20 keys to the writer’s world. If, of course you have the wit and wisdom to mine it for all it’s worth.

My take on humility

Humility, like all good habits, comes down to first being aware of yourself. Then reminding yourself how to respond as the situations arise. In time the goal of having the virtue become a habit that only grows stronger as you continue to practice it. With enough practice it becomes part of your personal discipline.

From humble to cleaning in one stroke… De-cluttering More Than My Desk Saved My Writing

Photo by Karsten Winegeart on Unsplash

Kipling’s Writing Lessons in IF


Kipling’s writing lessons in If are a treasure trove for the writer willing to put them into practice. When I think of maturity and growing up I find myself thinking about Rudyard Kipling’s poem to his son “If”. I first ran across the poem somewhere back in my child hood. Not sure where I first ran into it. Though, I remember it was referenced and read in class in high school and middle school.

Kipling’s Writing Lessons on Two Importers

Even outside of school I found the poem in some of the most unexpected places from lines on buildings and parks. A friend once pointed out that they quoted from the poem over the player’s Center Court entrance.


“If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two impostors just the same”

Society

I have found many writers have used ‘If’ in their books and articles. Some of our pop culture is based on this poem from music classics like Bread’s If (https://youtu.be/qGfVOdTiUEc) to TV shows like Boardwalk Empire’s used it as the theme for the Season Three Episode 11 Two Importers.

College

I have had a college roommate put If up on his wall so he could read it daily to remind himself of the standard he needed to make for himself. It became a kind of mantra for him as he dealt with the struggles of getting through college and getting on with life after the Army.

For most of that time I did little with If other than agree this was the general course a young man like myself should follow, then promptly moved on to other things.

Kipling’s Writing Lessons and the Writer

It was not till I sat down to really look at what a professional writer was that I found that Kipling’s writing lessons were much more than a surface level oration for a child. Even more, I found it was relevant to me as a writer with every beat.

Kipling’s lessons on personal integrity, behavior and growth reach deep into the craft of writing. While the poem serves quite well for a personal philosophy and ethos, it also gives a writer a blueprint to follow for their development as a writer.

Kipling’s Lessons

A writer must dream and think, but we really cannot just dream or think. We must do our work. There are pages to be written, edited, rewritten and published. Then the manuscripts and articles must be promoted and the research for the next tale done.


Every book, article, and work launched is an invitation to success or disaster. The writer must see them only for the feedback and the lessons instead of some stamp on their character or a vote of popularity.


Every time a writer publishes, we gamble with all our emotional and financial winnings of life in one pitch of the dice. The mature writer will take the loss silently, at least as far as others might hear, and return to the keyboard with a feeling of having been spent to try another book or article.


A writer must learn to let no critic hurt you, even the one inside.

Act When You Fall

If packs lessons in every line. There is even a lesson of what to do when the world has crashed down on you.


“If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, …”

No truer words for a writer who has just had a failure. Write something fast. Don’t look down or look back. Write. The power of a writer is that even when there is nothing to be done, we can do something. We can act. We can write.

Kipling Life

Kipling’s own life is a hero’s journey of pain that gives us a clear vision of what our own trials may one day yield in our work. His life was more tragedy than gift. In child hood he was denied him parental love and attention, sent by his parents to a faster mother who beat him. Kipling even failed in school where they tried to instill character traits that he was not suited for. He even found great pain in adulthood with the loss of two of his children.

Yet out of all of that pain and misery he gave us a clear definition of what an adult should aspire to. For the writer becoming an adult is to say that we are turning more professional in our effort to write.

Kipling Set Standard

Kipling himself seems to have lived to the very standard he set for his son in the poem. In his life he was successful as a poet in his early years and gained quite a sound popularity that was able to withstand the later critics who attacked his work as superficial without any deep meaning.

The Work

For Kipling the work itself was the point. Because of this more humble take on both himself and his work, he turned down several honors that included Poet Laureate, Order of Merit and even a knighthood. Out of all of them it was only the Nobel Prize for Literature that Kipling accepted in 1907. The results of his work reach far further than mere egotistically driven self-acclaim.

We still read Kipling’s works today. From his works springs a form of immortality that only a dedicated writer is capable of achieving. After over one hundred years, we are still enriched as we bask in his work. The Jungle Book, Kim, and Just So Stories that enrich us all. Of them all it is If that enriches the writer most.

Kipling’s Writing Lessons for Writers

To the writer just reading through his poem is a complete list of the mind, skills, and strengths a writer need to do battle with one’s own ego. There is not one line that every writer should not commit to memory and habit in their pursuit of the craft.

In the lines we find not just the advice to improve ourselves, but also to practice daily those skills that motivate, encourage… much of it comprised of mantras to use in those times the world comes crashing in and our egos rend our spirit to shreds.

Clairity

If is one of those crystal clear lines of thought that if we head and learn from its guidance, we cannot help but become better people as well as better writers. That is the mark of a true master on the path.

‘If’

by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master,
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

Photo by Artur Aldyrkhanov on Unsplash

Feedback Response is Important

Feedback Response is Important. Good feedback is like manna from heaven. Poor feedback can kills gains and even end your writing career before it even starts.

I like working through leadership books. I got hooked on the idea by my karate Sensei. Later the Marines hammered the concept of learning more about leadership. Today, I keep on learning for the main reason that everyone is a leader.

Always Leading

Humans are leading all the time. We lead in our social groups. Sometimes we lead as a member of a team we work with. At home it is our family or among our friends when we hang out. We are even leading people we do not know by our example as we go about our days. However, the most forgotten leadership position is that we are also leading ourselves. That is the one position we do all the time. It is by far our greatest responsibility. We screw up that and we send ourselves and the rest down the same rat hole. Our only tool is feedback. How we respond to that feedback is important.

That’s part of the reason I have been spending some of my mornings this year working through Chet Scott’s 365 day long training book Becoming Built to Lead. I really like his dive in approach of sound advice focused on building your internal base by learning about yourself from you as you work to improve your leadership skills over the course of the year. He has some great feedback in those lessons, like a walking version of Kipling’s If The correct response should be to see the importance of what he is talking about. Then apply it.

Lessons From Scott

Today’s little slowdown period started out talking about Lionel Messi of the Paris Saint-Germaine soccer team. It would be fair to say I am a distance from being the greatest soccer fan. I watch the occasional game, like when the Italians play the Germans. My knoledge is just enough to keep up with the game and appreciate much of the skill the players have. I even know of some of the better players. Though, you don’t need even that much to agree with Scott’s belief that Messi is a master of his game. Anyone watching can see that on the field Messi is in his element. He has mastered the game to an amazing level of play. Just watch him play and pay attention to how hard they have to work when he has the ball. The story is written in their faces.

The interesting thing is, as Scott points out, that he is very dominate on his left foot. He is not really the balanced player many people might think a player of his level would be. In fact his right foot is not all that good. This is for most players a distinct disadvantage. It’s not really a secret either. Everyone knows this, not just on his team but all the other teams as well. This does not stop him from playing so well. His strategy is to just focus on brining his natural dominance to an even greater level of play. He raises the bar to such a level that even with such insider understanding no one can touch him. He is proof that you do not need to be totally rounded in everything to master your work. Instead choose to become extraordinary.

Put It In Play

So, how do you become an extraordinary writer?

The answer for Scott is found in the feedback we get from our work. You need feedback and running from it is not an option. You should be running to it. Absorb all the feedback. Drink it deep.

Though, here’s the first key point….only learn from 1% of everything you take in. Let the rest just flow through you. None of that stuff is worth your time because it really does not have an effect on what matters. What matters is the work itself. That’s where you get your answers. That’s where we need to focus. We are focusing on what feedback improves your work.

The important point in feedback is how we respond

You have to ask the hard questions. Does the feedback even apply? Will it produce real improvements? That one two combo knocks out much unneeded information and clears your mental decks to really use the remaining feedback effectively. We all need feedback that strengthens our work. We can and should ignore the feedback imposters that stroke our egos like approval and popularity. So too, the negative side of the coin gets the bin. Focus instead on doing the work and your mastery of that work. As Steven Pressfield points out you find the payoff in the work. You don’t find it in the emotions about your work. Your pay off is the joy of the job itself. The payoff is better when you used the right feedback to make your work stronger.

https://endennis.com/top-three-mental-habits-writers-need-how-to-get-them/?preview_id=109&preview_nonce=932ac803d0&preview=true&_thumbnail_id=134


Photo by Jason Rosewell on Unsplash