The Best Solution Is To Become Bulletproof

Criticism hurts, but you won’t die from it. And it’s absolutely essential

When I was young, I was bullied.

It’s hard to imagine how a 6ft tall, 200lb guy ever got bullied, but I wasn’t always this big.

On my first day in fifth grade, I got kicked because, according to my bully, I was very kickable. He was a few years older than me and considerably larger.

I protested to my father, who told me that I shouldn’t get into fights because, nowadays, everyone carries a knife. I protested to the school board, pointed out which kid it was, and the school board said, “I see,” and promptly punished the wrong kid.

Sigh. Yes, true story. Another kid who didn’t do anything to me got suspended. I tried to tell them they got the wrong guy, but I guess they had it out for him.

The kicking went on for a while, and so I developed excellent hiding skills. For instance, I discovered that using a ruler, I could slide the locks’ latches in and open any classroom door. Yeah, it’s the old credit card trick, but 12-year-olds aren’t known for their credit purchases. My classmates and I spend a lot of time just hanging out in classroom 8.

Then, around 8th grade, I became bigger than everyone else, and the bullying surprisingly stopped.

Bullies are cowards.

I’m not here to preach that bullying has a place in society. I don’t think it does. I think it’s deplorable, like any other reasonable human.

Each path you take is filled with unknown dangers

When I started working as a chef, I thought I had grown a considerably thick skin.

Well, I was wrong.

My first head chef was an expert in mental abuse and manipulation. Skills he gained from years of working aboard cruise liners and smoking heroin. Despite his shortcomings, he moulded me into a highly effective, fast and adaptable chef by constantly making me miserable.

Have you ever seen the movie Whiplash? That’s what my first year as a chef felt like.

Here’s what I learned: negative reinforcement makes you adapt faster, but not necessarily better.

Roll with the punches

When I first began writing, I was sure I was ready for any criticism that came my way. After all, every recipe I ever made was up for scrutiny from restaurant owners, chefs, waiters and sometimes even dishwashers. People have no reservations or mercy when it comes to food.

Like writing, everyone knows how to do it to some extent.

Anyway, I was used to having my creative endeavours critiqued.

Right until an editor had a look at my 150k novel and didn’t read past the third paragraph.

He wasn’t mean, not even rough. He only made a silly joke, “Yes, this book would sell rather nicely in the 1500s.”

It hit me like a javelin missile.

I held my smile until the meeting was over, and as soon as I found myself alone, the world went quiet. Then it began to spin. Blood drained out of my head.

For eight months, I toiled around that manuscript. I had quit my job to open a restaurant, but instead, I wasted my time and money writing a novel that would never see the light of day—eight damned months. Apart from my wife, who didn’t have much choice, it wasn’t read past the third paragraph—from 150k words.

Once the initial shock was over, I got angry. Then furious. Livid. But there was nothing to be done. There was no one to be mad at except me.

All the rage drained out in a split second, and the Editor’s words started to resonate with me.

The Editor had written and published books. And he was, after all, granting me a favour.

There was no malice in him, just facts. My prose was too poetic; it tried too hard to be clever (otherwise known as purple prose). It’s a common mistake among rookie writers. Don’t fret; it’s part of the process.

My wife and some friends tried to warn me, but I didn’t listen. (Yet another common mistake among newbie writers.) According to my wife, my writing improved significantly in later chapters, so I took some solace there.

That’s the second biggest lesson in writing. It needs to be gripping from the start. Get your best ideas front and centre, and use language that makes the readers’ eyes tumble down the page. Every sentence serves only to push you to read the next one.

Yeah, that first critique hurt, but it didn’t kill me

Instead, the hurt showed me that if a simple critique could inflict so much pain, it meant that writing is something I genuinely love. So got super serious about it. I studied and honed the craft.

And vowed to keep my projects short until I had enough luggage to embark on another long project.

And so, when the time came, I actually wrote a novel people want to read. Not the first draft, though; the third iteration.

If you want to write, there’s one thing you need to be aware of, and it’s that you’ll have to write the same thing from the start more than once. But I’ve covered that in a previous article.

This brings me to my final thoughts

I learned to take criticism about my writing the same way I learned to take criticism about my recipes, by exposing myself to it until it felt normal. I also learned to be smart about it and not bite more than I should chew.

And that’s a piece of advice for you to consider: Write smaller, more manageable projects before going long form.

It will save you a lot of despair.

Feedback and critiques are not assaults on your ego. They are tools to help you make your work better. No man’s an island; writers would be nothing without alpha readers, beta readers, editors, proofreaders, consulters, etc. You’ll pull most of the weight as a writer, but a novel is not a one-person gig.

If you don’t know where to find honest feedback, this article may help you:

So absorb the criticism, let it flow in and out, and witness how it will change you and your work.

To be a good writer, you’ll need to learn to evaluate feedback for value and to distance yourself emotionally from your work.

It’s not easy. It just might be the hardest thing you’ll have to figure out. And the worst part is, you can’t avoid it. You have to expose yourself in order to improve.

And that’s a good thing.

Your job as a writer is to spread clearer messages and tell stories that linger in the reader’s mind.

That’s it.

Everything else is hubris and sore egos.

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