Ouch, the truth hurts: how criticism can make or break a writer

Because I'm a sensitive soul*, it took a lot of courage** to join a face-to-face writers' critique group.

I won't go into details about the group members, suffice to say they're a rowdy bunch of chickadees*** whose overriding goal is to get their work published.

Our styles are different and the genres include erotica, sweet, paranormal and historical, which has its advantages and disadvantages. At least it encourages a feisty exchange of ideas.  

On Saturday I went to my second meeting with the group, though it's been established for several months. This week it was my turn to have my WIP critiqued.

I quite like my story and have a fond affection for my hero and heroine. But after an hour of having my WIP verbally shredded and tossed into a dumpster, my feelings have changed. Now I look at my hero and see an insipid wimp that no girl with blood in her veins would want to jump. And my heroine is selfish, vacuous and two-dimensional.

My GMC sucks, the plot is ridiculous**** and I do too much TELL and not enough SHOW.

Shellshocked, I left the meeting and stumbled into the late afternoon drizzle. 

On the way home I stopped at a bottle shop and spent more than I usually do on a bottle of shiraz, and when I got back I bored Spanner into a coma with a self-pitying rant.

"My WIP sucks. I'll never be a writer. I'm shite. The world is shite. And you don't care about me. You don't understand me. I'm a tortured artist. Pour me another glass of wine, ya bastard." And so on and so forth until bedtime.

Now it's Monday, I've had time to reflect on the feedback - and to recover from a mild headache. I realise that all is not lost and, for the most part, my critique partners were right, though I wish they'd been a little more gentle and massaged my ego with a little more praise.

But now I know where I need to dig into my story to give it more guts. I've got to raise the stakes and not sit back and think: "Geez, I'm clever."

Writing is bloody hard work and so is the ability to accept well-intended criticism. You know how the saying goes - What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

*Unable to handle criticism
**The energy to get off my bum and do something
***Like me, they are barking mad (in the most complimentary sense) 
**** No one at the meeting said this, but being the sensitive creature that I am, I reinterpreted every comment (sociopathic maybe?)

It's that time of year again: the RWA annual conference is on at Coogee and it's pumpin'

I'm used to it by now. The quizzically raised eyebrows, the poorly concealed snigger, the patronising, "How interesting."And so it goes whenever I tell people that next week I'm off to the RWA annual conference. The RWA stands for Romance Writers of Australia.

I don't tell many people I write romance (or fiction with romantic elements). I'm more inclined to refer to it as plain "chick lit", though that is also likely to be dismissed as lightweight formula fiction.

The truth is RWA represents a hugely diverse group of writers. Sure, category romance is well represented and the publisher Harlequin is a gold sponsor of the event (Baci is the silver sponsor - yummy).

But romance doesn't stop at category. Some of the genres and subgenres include Young Adult (YA) fiction, historical fiction, paranormal, fantasy, steam punk, single title and crime fiction.

The conference caters to this with workshops that span topics for every writer, no matter what the genre. For example, on the Friday I'm doing a goal, motivation and conflict workshop. I reckon a lot of your so-called 'literary' writers could learn a thing or two from this.

The same can be said of the weekend workshops, which cover author promotions, making the most of the web, tips for crime writers, the art of writing fight scenes and the relationship between writer and editor.

It's gonna be a big weekend.

And I don't care what the literary snobs think. I'm excited!