One of the most common pieces of advice given to new writers is: Develop thick skin.
As a literary agent, I’ve been told I need to develop thick skin too. However, I have a confession:
I don’t have thick skin.
Not at all. I have a fragile heart, I take things personally, and I don’t just bounce back right away when I receive criticism.
I truly appreciate helpful critiques of my work, or advice on how to improve any area of my life. I crave it. I value the input of others. Yet at the same time, if it’s not always positive, I have a hard time getting over the hurt feelings (or the knee-jerk angry reaction) and moving on to actually learning from the criticism. I imagine I’m not the only one.
The reason I’m telling you this is because I know people are telling you “develop thick skin” and I know some of you are thinking, “I don’t know how to do that.” And I’m here to tell you: Some of you will never develop a thick skin.
But the important thing is: You‘ll survive.
When you’re criticized or rejected or you receive negative reviews, it will hurt – it may pierce your heart, but you’ll survive. You survive by first, allowing yourself to experience the pain. You find ways to express it in a healthy way, perhaps by taking a day to cry, or talking it over with your best friend, or calling your mom because she’s the one person who always supports you no matter what.
Then, you turn it around. You ask yourself if the criticism came from someone to whom you should listen. If the answer is yes, then you begin looking for ways to learn from what they said. You ask yourself whether you disagree or agree with what they said. (You give yourself permission to disagree with at least part of it.) Then you take what you can learn from it, and discard the rest. Move on to the next thing.
Easier said than done, of course. And I admit, it sometimes takes me awhile to work through this process!
So what about you? Are you thick skinned? If not, how do you handle criticism? Are you able to learn from it?
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Rachelle Gardner is an agent with Books & Such Literary, looking for authors with long-term publishing potential. She represents Christian fiction and non-fiction, with a particular fondness for strong spiritual memoirs and books that address contemporary issues in Christianity. www.rachellegardner.com
I love this perspective and tips! Thank you!
Thick skin? No, not at all. My parents sent me to counseling when I was in the third or fourth grade because I was so easily emotionally injured.
On the positive side, Rachelle, you have a gift for delivering messages of critique with gentleness and grace. Unlike any other literary agent, you have delivered messages of “no” to me in ways that, while disappointing, I walked away from the message feeling uplifted and encouraged to press on. Not everyone can do that. Indeed, I would argue that very few people can do that.
Thank you for your generosity in serving the literary community.
I think I have thick skin until I get criticism! Ha! It dawned on me the other day when I was editing a guest post for my blog – hacking away – that I hadn’t liked it when another blog editor had suggested an equal number of hacks on the post I had sent them. Ha, again. I liked what you said on how to deal: cry, if I must; pray, always; tell a friend (mom’s in glory) and as my mentor says, trust God and do the next thing. I wish you were my agent!