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Showing posts from May 22, 2013

Criticism

Our writing “…belongs to anyone that wants to read or criticize it.”  Stephen King -   On Writing It was bound to happen. I suppose it happens to all writers at some point. At first, when I saw it, I was angry and it really got my blood boiling. My heart started racing. What was it? The first overtly critical, harshly directed, publicly ridiculing of something I wrote. My first response was to lash out, respond and retaliate in some way. But then, I remembered something Stephen King had writing in his book, On Writing. King said that our first draft should be written with the door closed. It should be for us. We tell the story to ourselves. We are our first audience. When we rewrite it should be with the door open. We should write with our audience in mind as we rewrite. When we “get it right”, when we are happy with the story, with the final product, we share it with the world. When we “get it right”, it becomes fair game for praise or criticism. There a