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Selfish, Smiling, and Worthless
I am a writer. I write poetry and analysis and product reviews and fiction and position papers and synopsises and short stories and comedic skits and copy writing and pretend on occasion to be working on both fiction and fact based novels.
Most of what I write has limited exposure which the polite way of saying I don't make money from most of my writing even though it may be a critical success or be identified as salient and precise or entertaining or whatever depending on he venue. So while I do not make boatloads of cash on my writing, my peers view me as competent and respect my abilities. That,to me, is enough.
But the secret of my writing is not whatever little or great talent I may or may not possess. My writing is successful because I am willing to collaborate on ideas, to take feedback, to listen to the ideas and viewpoints of others and incorporate them in my work.
A case in point.
In 2007 I was in the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire and one of the shows I did was the Street Circus. I loved it and had a blast but really did not do much planning out of my own act. In 2009 I was back at the Ren Faire and back as part of Street Circus but this time I was collaborating with the director of the show on skit ideas and show flow and individual acts, all geared toward making the show balanced and entertaining from start to finish and in 2009 we saw our show attendance go from 50-100 people to nearly 400 people on a consistent basis and had us as a featured act in the biggest show at the Ren Faire.
The director toasted me that night, indicating that I was the catalyst for our success. I was honored.
OK, so what's the point here?
I did not write the shows that made us successful, I edited them and collaborated with the other actors and together we took our disparate abilities and defined a show that was unprecedented in the history of the faire's 25+ year existence for popularity and performance.
By being willing to set our ego aside, by being willing to admit our work and ideas could be enhanced by the thoughts of others, by being willing to modify the things that defined us as actors based on the feedback and critique of our peers, our show was exponentially better.
So when I see people unwilling to accept critique, I see people who, no matter their talent, are essentially worthless. They are worthless because they operate in a bubble. Oh they may say nice things, they may smile politely, but they are selfish people who have over value their own ability and cannot be bothered to offer or accept advice.
And if you cannot accept critique, what is the chance that you can give real critique, critique above:
"This is what I like, because this is what I write, you need to write like me."
But then, I am a writer. I take my craft seriously and plan to pursue it seriously for the rest of my life. As such, I will continue to work with talented people and watch as our work becomes better through collaboration that it ever could be on its own. Not because of my talent, but because of my willingness to accept the advice of others.
Some people will take this blog post as a personal attack. these people are idiots.
Most of what I write has limited exposure which the polite way of saying I don't make money from most of my writing even though it may be a critical success or be identified as salient and precise or entertaining or whatever depending on he venue. So while I do not make boatloads of cash on my writing, my peers view me as competent and respect my abilities. That,to me, is enough.
But the secret of my writing is not whatever little or great talent I may or may not possess. My writing is successful because I am willing to collaborate on ideas, to take feedback, to listen to the ideas and viewpoints of others and incorporate them in my work.
A case in point.
In 2007 I was in the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire and one of the shows I did was the Street Circus. I loved it and had a blast but really did not do much planning out of my own act. In 2009 I was back at the Ren Faire and back as part of Street Circus but this time I was collaborating with the director of the show on skit ideas and show flow and individual acts, all geared toward making the show balanced and entertaining from start to finish and in 2009 we saw our show attendance go from 50-100 people to nearly 400 people on a consistent basis and had us as a featured act in the biggest show at the Ren Faire.
The director toasted me that night, indicating that I was the catalyst for our success. I was honored.
OK, so what's the point here?
I did not write the shows that made us successful, I edited them and collaborated with the other actors and together we took our disparate abilities and defined a show that was unprecedented in the history of the faire's 25+ year existence for popularity and performance.
By being willing to set our ego aside, by being willing to admit our work and ideas could be enhanced by the thoughts of others, by being willing to modify the things that defined us as actors based on the feedback and critique of our peers, our show was exponentially better.
So when I see people unwilling to accept critique, I see people who, no matter their talent, are essentially worthless. They are worthless because they operate in a bubble. Oh they may say nice things, they may smile politely, but they are selfish people who have over value their own ability and cannot be bothered to offer or accept advice.
And if you cannot accept critique, what is the chance that you can give real critique, critique above:
"This is what I like, because this is what I write, you need to write like me."
But then, I am a writer. I take my craft seriously and plan to pursue it seriously for the rest of my life. As such, I will continue to work with talented people and watch as our work becomes better through collaboration that it ever could be on its own. Not because of my talent, but because of my willingness to accept the advice of others.
Some people will take this blog post as a personal attack. these people are idiots.