text: Baby in the Blender: How I Learned to Love Critique – The various scribblings of Andrew J. Savage
  You're a writer. You just know you are. And you're excited to do more of it. You're so excited that you find a group–maybe it's an online group–and you join because you want the company of fellow writers. So far so good. They have a peer review system. It's a system where you can post some of your writing and the other writers will comment on it for you. You think to yourself, "That sounds a bit frightening, but really, I'm a writer, so how bad can it be?" You build up your courage and finally you are prepared to post some of your work.
  This is no ordinary writing. This is your writing. This writing is also imbued with certain personal qualities unique to you. It is tied inexorably with your self-worth, your ego. It contains the seeds of your dream of being a published writer, or poet or technical writer. With great trepidation, you load your baby–for that is how you now feel about it–into the group's peer review system. And you hold your breath.
  With every word your eyes narrow. You scan down the page little by little, stopping at all the little call-outs, the carefully worded suggestions. Every one of them sets off a tiny incendiary device deep in your brain. You feel yourself getting warmer. Let's be real here. It's anger. How dare they not love my story? How dare they rip into my article? Who are they to not recognize my talent and the sheer brilliance of my prose?
  Image courtesy of the wonderful and very talented @bex-dk .Here's the thing. We've all been there. Like I said above, I truly believe that deep down, on some level, all of us are looking for validation. We want people to say, "That was the best thing I've ever read." And maybe it really is. But the expectation that someone will look at the literary equivalent of the crap we just took on the living room carpet and see it for a flawless diamond is laughable. And make no mistake, most unedited writing is the equivalent of that unwanted living room turd.
  "Surely you don't mean that?" I hear you ask. Don't I? Writing is, they say, a craft. Craft can be defined as "an activity involving skill in making things by hand." There will be some people somewhere for whom writing is natural. They can just do it. Maybe they don't even know how or why it works. For them, it just does.
  For the rest of mankind, writing is a craft, which means that it is something that needs to be worked at. And even those freaks benefit from working at it. It involves the development of skills. And how do you develop skills? Well that, dear reader, is done through practice, and lots of it.
  I'll tell you what doesn't work. Thinking you know it all already. Oh, you may think from the tone of this that I believe I have it all figured out. It's all very well to be preachy in an article. Well, the truth is, I don't have it all figured out. I learn something new every time I write and every time someone takes the time to critique my work–every time they give me the gift of a critique.
  Image courtesy of Pixabay.The next time you go along to that writing group and you work up the courage to put your baby into the blender (ahem… the peer review system), just remember: it's not a baby, it's just words strung together. And you can learn to do that better, because writing is a craft, and crafts require perseverance and practice.
  Copyright 2018 A.J.Savage
  Published inarticleSteemitwriting
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  This is so true. Getting your work reviewed and edited hurts, but it's the only way to improve. We are blind to the real flaws and strengths of our own work. We need help to see them clearly so we can grow and improve.