Complimenting a writer is tricky business. We’ve all heard things like “It’s good.” “What was good about it?” “Dunno.” Or worse, “it’s fine.”
Fine? If it’s fine I’ve done something wrong, haven’t I? I wanted to make something great. It is easy to be a salty, salty writer. Sometimes readers simply won’t connect with your writing, and we need to be alright with that. But today, let’s take a moment among friends to share our absolute saltiest writer moments.
I’ll start us off. A while back, I was in a workshop where someone described my writing as “overdramatic.” While a completely fair criticism, it was a difficult one to take–mostly because it came from someone whose voluptuous prose made me cringe so hard I nearly ejected my soul from my body.
Now, see, there’s no real reason to be angry, here. No one did anything wrong. I’m just…salty. And that’s okay.
It’s anonymous, it’s cathartic, and on paper it’s fairly humorous. Give it a try! Be salty before you’re angry.
I went to a creative writing workshop in high school where I was given the “Best READER” award. smh.
I mean it’s true, my writing often comes off better when I read it out loud. Other people’s work sounds better when I read it out loud, because I am a decent actor. This says nothing about my writing.
It was kind of a big blow to my adolescent ego tbh.
On the other, other hand… having stumbled upon my teenage writing, that probably was the nicest thing anyone could have said about it. *siiiigh*
Getting writing to read well both on and off the page is a bugger. I definitely hear you there.
I gave myself some tough love recently on “Lost and Found” by making one of my friends read the chapter I was struggling with aloud to me and three other friends who didn’t know it was my writing. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, mainly because I sat under the table, but it was also exactly as bad as I thought it would be. *shudder*
Lol. Getting someone else to read it is a really good idea though. Definitely forces it out of the “voice in your head” which always seems to be way smoother than whatever actually ends up on the page.
“mostly because it came from someone whose voluptuous prose made me cringe so hard I nearly ejected my soul from my body.”
An excellent description with extra salt 😀
*bows* Why, thank you. Gotta use that salt up sooner rather than later.