Diving in. And surviving

I had returned the students’ assignments and was back at my desk at the front of the room awaiting their questions. What came, almost immediately, was a shriek from one student — one of the most promising students in this particular class: “You tore my work apart!” Ah. Oops. Yes. This is sometimes the reaction to feedback on writing that demands respect, to writing that is clearly going somewhere but hasn’t yet arrived.

I talked with the student and persuaded him that my detailed comments were an indication of the quality and potential of his work. It took quite a bit of talking on my part, but he was, eventually, persuaded. In the long term, that writing helped him win an award. At the ceremony, he told me he had realized how valuable my feedback had been for him.

I’ve been remembering this particular experience recently, because I have dived into the public pool of writing in two ways: my piece on Brevity Blog was published last week, and this week I’ve signed up for a month of writing prompts and peer feedback in an online workshop run by SmokeLong Quarterly, a publication that focuses on flash-length writing (<1,000 words).

Submitting one’s work is one thing: nerve racking. Having it accepted is another: exciting. But reading strangers’ comments on that work is an entirely different matter: exhilarating and terrifying in equal measure. The positive comments are easy to accept, the critical ones not so much. But here’s the nub of the writing game, I believe: We must have the courage to dive in when we’re ready. We must have the courage to read the comments. We must have the courage to appreciate the positive ones. And, we must have the courage to reject those with which we disagree.

I think this holds true for many things in life. We are not islands on this earth, but networks of human beings. Our actions affect others, as theirs affect us. We must be open to feedback and we must know ourselves well enough to accept it or to reject it. Both accepting and rejecting take practice and patience, but neither skill will ever evolve if we don’t first put ourselves into the game.

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Land acknowledgement: I respectfully recognize that I live on the original lands of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation.

Photo by Austrian National Library on Unsplash