Where have I been?

So, where have I been?

It’s been over a month since I posted anything on my Tumblr, my blog, or on any of my editing websites. I was on a roll with my new novel, Way of Spears, until I hit a wall. I’m majoring in creative writing, and decided to take my first chapter into class to have it workshopped. My peers loved it and wanted to read more, but my professor hated it. She thought my characters were “deliberate stereotypes” and felt that the use of “horses, brooches, and cloaks” was cliché.

Now, I have to say right here that my professor is not my intended audience. She’s a very interesting and intelligent woman, but she’s about eighty years old and hates the Young Adult/New Adult genre, which is what I enjoy and write in.

It felt great to get such positive feedback from so many of my peers, but receiving such harsh criticism from a professor really sent my head spinning. I worried that my entire novel had been a waste of time, and that no one would enjoy the story of the characters that I had so come to love. If no one liked it, why write it?

It took me a few weeks to heal from this. During that time I rewrote the Prologue and Chapter One multiple times, and each time I felt like I was rewriting it to try to please someone else. Every time I asked for feedback, my readers gave me conflicting opinions. And that’s when I realized something important.

I need to write for myself.

I cannot be constantly trying to please others, because it’ll never work. Everyone has different tastes and opinions of literature, and what one person loves, another might hate.

So I’m ready now to love my story again, and to take my professor’s harsh criticism and put it behind me. I love my story, and I adore my characters, and that’s really what matters.

We will all receive harsh criticism, but we can’t let that stop us from believing in ourselves and doing what we love. So take all those critics and put them in a glass jar, then hide them on the top shelf in your darkest closet. Because if you love your work, that’s all that matters.

 

-Natalia