Critiquing Fear

It’s the first day of a new study period for university. I click eagerly through the university website, glancing through the course outline. For my introduction, I have to introduce myself as a character. Well, that’s  different. And then…

I have to critique someone else’s introduction.

At once the panic starts to rise. Help! Critique someone’s work? But I’m not very good at writing myself. I don’t know how to give a good critique. I don’t want the other students to hate me for pointing out faults in their work. I’m having a panic attack and I haven’t so much as clicked the mouse yet.

It’s a funny thing, but no one seems to like giving critiques. My course is a creative writing course, and yet everyone is saying ‘Oh your work is wonderful. I love such-and-such about it’, and nothing else. Which is all very nice to hear. I can’t help smiling and feeling just a little bit clever. But at the same time, comments like these aren’t going to make me into a better writer. They’re just going to give me a big head.

So, if I realise that this is not the way to help people, why do I feel bad when I post a critique that both praises and criticizes a piece of writing? I might not have a piece of paper that tells me I’m qualified to help other people with their writing, but I can tell them what didn’t work for me. It’s an opinion, nothing more.

I think that this fear of critiquing someone’s writing comes from fear that I’m going to hurt the other person’s feelings. Even when I’ve spent an hour writing and rewriting the same hundred and fifty words over and over trying to phrase the critique in a way that I hope won’t offend, I’m still worried that I’m going to be making them feel like their work is terrible. I’ve had enough bad days of my own where I think that my writing is terrible to want to give anyone else a day like that.

But saying that everything is perfect, that’s not the way to help anyone improve. If we were all perfect already, why would we be taking this course? So I write and rewrite that critique over and over again, trying to word it just right, trying to gently show the other people where they might improve their writing and make it stronger. Not to say that I’m any good at this. It’s true, I’ve never done this before. But if I truly want to help the other person, I need to show them the good and the bad, in the nicest way possible. Critiques, they don’t seem to be easy things to write, but they are necessary if we're to grow as writers.

April Adventures Successes

Before April started, I wrote a post about all the adventurous things I was taking on in April. And honestly, there were a lot. I looked at my list and couldn't believe how many things I was doing. What was I thinking? Well, to tell the truth, I wasn't thinking. Not until it was too late.

Still, I had signed up for all those things, and I wasn't about to give up now. So I went to it with a will, determined not to fall behind in anything. Surely I could manage that? Well, maybe...

April Camp NaNo was the easiest of the challenges. Even aiming for a higher goal than the usual 50 thousand words I found it fairly easy to keep up with the required minimum of words. Writing first drafts of novels is the best part of novel writing to me.

The A-Z challenge was harder. Being me, I wasn't prepared at all. I didn't even sign up until a few days before. I had no idea of what to write. Every evening I sat at my desk and tried to come up with something interesting to say, with varying amounts of success.

And then there were university assignments that had to be written and submitted on time. Music practices to be done. Family to attempt to see more than just at meal times. So many things to do in a day.

And did I manage it? Yes I did. I didn't miss a day with the A-Z challenge. I completed my April Camp NaNo word count. I did my music practices, submitted my assignments, and even managed to remember I had a family every once in a while. April was a huge success.

After all that hard work in April, I took a blogging break for the first two weeks of May to recharge. Which means I'm terribly behind with the lovely comments that people have left me. My apologise, and thank you to everyone who has left a comment. I'm working moderating and answering them all as fast as I can.

Zippers and Homemade, Hand-Me-Down Skirts

It was beautiful fabric. Thick, blue denim, with a pink pattern on it. I could just see it as my newest skirt. Oh, I could't wait for Mum to make it for me, to work her magic with the sewing machine and turn it into a skirt. It would swish around my ankles, long and elegant. It would be amazing.

The sewing machine whirred and hummed. I stood outside the door, listening to the buzzing of the machine, and the puff of the steam iron as Mum worked to turn that fabric into my skirt. Not long now.

"It's all done. Why don't you try it on?"

I flew to my room, skirt clutched to my chest. Done at last! Now I would ear it. I slid it on, and reached for the zipper. And then stopped. Where was the zipper tab for me to pull it up by? I groped around. Where was it? The zipper was there, but the tab wasn't

No, wait. There it was. On the inside of the skirt! The zipper was inside out. It was a perfect zipper, the best zipper in a homemade skirt I'd ever had, but it was inside out. Whoops!

Not that it mattered to me. I didn't mind sliding my fingers down the inside of my skirt to undo the zip. It was one of my favourite skirts, and I loved wearing it, inside out zipper and all. It was a sad day when I handed it down the line to the next sister to wear.

A few weeks ago, the time came to sort out the winter clothes. Large storage boxes sat in the hallway and clothing strewed the house. And then, out of the piles of clothes, came the skirt with the inside out zipper.

My second youngest sister, Sophie, pounced on it with a cry of delight. "I remember this skirt. Do you think I'd fit it this year?" Much to her delight, it did fit. She put it on, and danced around the room in her new, hand-me-down skirt with the inside out zipper. It didn't matter to her about the mistake. She just loved the skirt.

So really, it doesn't matter about little mistakes like those. Because a skirt with an inside zipper can be just as well loved as any other skirt, especially when it's made by your mother with love.

Yes I Can

I drag myself out of bed and down to the park with my sisters. I’m so tired. Maybe I could just do a little run. There’s no way I’m running 6km today. I can’t do that. Not when I’ve got a headache and I’m tired and everyone else seems to be running so much better than me. I’m not good enough> I can’t do this today.

Yes I can. Those words are magic. My feet feel lighter already. Yes, I can do this. The third kilometre is gone, and I’m heading up the fourth.  Yes, I am good enough to do this. The fifth kilometre is a memory in the past. Yes, I can make it to the end. I’m strong, I’m fast, I’m a runner. And there I am, six kilometres run.

Where is that headache now? Where’s that tiredness? Wasn’t I supposed to be heaving my leaden feet around the track, bewailing every moment I had to spend out here? Wasn’t I supposed to be the bad runner, who wasn’t as fit as everyone else? Where did all that go? Was it all in my imagination?

I grin at my family as we stride home, our heads held high. Yes, I did it. I can be proud now. Just thinking those three little words, ‘Yes I can’, what a change it makes. I know what to do next time I go running. Can I run as far as everyone else? Yes I can.

X-Rays, Thumbs, and Writer’s Wrist

About two years ago, I dislocated my left thumb. It was really silly actually. Just a friendly game of soccer where the ball hit me on the base of the thumb and popped it out of joint. Admittedly, the recovery wasn’t very fun, and it was more than a month later when I finally had full use of my hand again. The doctor who x-rayed my hand to make sure I hadn’t broken anything thought I was pretty silly to have done that, and probably I was.

But it healed, and that was the end of it. Or so I thought.

Almost a year later, I took part in my first ever NaNoWriMo. Halfway through the month, my left wrist suddenly became a little painful. It’s nothing too bad. Nothing I can’t handle. And it goes away pretty quickly too.

But it comes back. Over and over again it comes back, normally right when I need a good wrist the most. Which is generally around the time I’m working on a novel. It’s annoying, and painful, but, until a certain point, not too bad.

And then NaNoWriMo last year came around and silly me wrote too much too fast. Hundreds of thousands of words later and my wrist hurt like I redislocated the thumb. Though I knew I haven’t done that at least.

A doctors trip later, and I head for an x-ray again, as well as an ultrasound. The x-ray is easy. Move my hand around into three painful positions and that’s it. Done. However the ultrasound took forever. The doctor watched the images on a screen, making notes and taking pictures. I stared up at them, anxious. Was there something badly wrong? What was she looking at? If only I knew how to translate the black and white pictures.

“You have writer’s wrist,” one doctor told me. “Lots of typing brings it one, though having it in the left hand is unusual for a right handed person. A shot of steroids will fix you up though.”

Writer’s wrist. I never heard of that one before. Does getting writer’s wrist make you into a proper writer? Does getting a steroid shot in your wrist make it big and strong and muscular? I wonder.

Well, the steroid shot didn’t give me a massively muscular wrist. But it did fix it. No longer plagued by writer’s wrist, I’m back to typing, just a little more carefully than before. Maybe writing so much in a month isn’t the best thing for me. So for all your writers, be careful. Or you might end up with writer’s wrist like me!

Welcoming the Wonderful Piano

A new piano sits in our house. It’s shiny black, with beautiful, white keys. It sits there, inviting fingers to press those keys and hear the notes ringing out, one by one, making music. It is by far the most beautiful piano that has ever been in our house.

This is my new piano. Many people get presents. Soap. Body wash. Books. Me, I was given a piano. I’m still not able to believe that someone would be so kind as to give me a whole piano. But there it is, sitting in my house, and I have to start believing it.

I sit down to play the piano. My scruffy black music folder sits on the music stand. It doesn’t look good enough for this wonderful piano. There should be something smarter sitting there. I put my fingers to the keys, take a deep breath, and start to play.

Is that my music? Is that really me playing those notes that boom out and fill the whole house? I’ve never heard my pieces sound as amazing as this at home before. Can this be me playing, on my piano? Is that my music ringing out? It must be, but it doesn’t sound like me. It sounds way, way better.

My new piano sits in the corner, gleaming in the light. I run my hand over its smooth surface, thankful for the wonderful person who was so kind as to give it to me. Piano practice will never be the same again. 

Villains: Becoming the Good Guys

The best villains, in my opinion, are the ones who are smart and witty and not easily beaten by the good guys. They’re the ones who use their brains, and come very close to beating the hero, and who you can have respect for. They’re not your common or garden criminals. They’re artists, taking villainy to the next level.

But what’s better than a villain who’s amazing at being bad? Why, a villain that’s amazing at being good. I’ve noticed that a few of my favourite movies and books have this aspect to them.

My most favourite movie of all time is Megamind, about a villain with a giant blue head, who ends up fighting evil and becoming the hero. It’s all about turning the typical superhero story on its head. Megamind is smart, and funny, and at the same time, so clueless about being the hero of the story.

In books, I recently read a series of books about a boy in a villainous academy, where he was being taught how to be a villain. The name of the academy was amazing. It was called HIVE: Higher Institute of Villainous Education. And this boy, he might have been learning how to be a villain, but he was leaning to be a gentlemanly villain, fighting off the real bad characters. Again, it took the idea of a villain, and turned it on its head.

A villain’s a great character. And it’s even better when they can be turned into the good guys. Do you have any other examples of this?