oh the critics

Oh the critics. Where would we be without them? Happier perhaps? No one likes to hear negative criticism, especially me. It puts you on the defensive, makes you second guess yourself and just all around sucks. But such is the case when you publish something for others to see.

Recently I submitted a column for XOJane.com, and it was published yesterday. The vast majority of the comments were criticisms. Basically the critics hated my story, which is somewhat saddening. I thought I wrote a funny tale. Apparently only my roommie, play cousin and I thought so. I can't say I'm completely surprised at the comments though. I've seen a lot of decent posts on that site get torn apart by commentators. Sometimes they were downright brutal. At least there was quite a bit of constructive criticism on my post. There's always a silver lining!

At the end of the day, I might not have liked everything that was said, but I did learn quite a few things that should help me improve as a writer. I took somewhat of a sabbatical from posting last year, so I am sadly rusty. The only way to get better is to work on honing my craft. Although I would love to hear words of praises for everything I post, that won't help me grow as a writer. Without critics, we would indeed be happier. But would we improve?