Laurel Snyder: Be a Critic of Critics

I don't often do this, and maybe I should do this more, but today I was looking at the amazing poet/children's writer/awesome mom, Laurel Snyder's, blog, and this is what I found:


http://laurelsnyder.com/2010/07/20/be-a-critic-of-critics/

She's says pretty much everything I've ever thought about trusting one's self and voice and listening to critics. This was a BIG issue when I was in college. When I was in the Undergrad Fiction Workshop, I was not very popular with my fellow workshoppers because I was fairly brutal when it came to my criticism of their work. I came from the position of, well, we were all chosen to be here, so why not tear some stories up and help each other make them better? It wasn't personal--but it became personal with some of the other people in the workshop, so I was basically told to back off. That made me a bit more of an egg-shell-stepper when it came to the Undergrad Playwright's Workshop.

Now, out in the real world, I would pretty much give ANYTHING to have any kind of criticism--at least it would mean that someone is reading my work. But I continue to plug on, and when I edit, I try to give it an outsider's eye as much as possible. Being both attached and detached from the work is pretty hard, but somehow I am making it work.