Criticism Stopped My Writing For a Decade
Criticism made me quit writing. Never let that happen to you.
“I read some of your book. It sucked, man,” was the first feedback I got—from a family member—on my self-published book. If someone from the one group that typically propped struggling writers up with emotional support was giving me that feedback already, it really must suck.
“What the hell does he know about parenting? This is stupid.” This was my second review from a coworker’s wife.
This all happened back in 2008 when I decided to take all I had learned about leadership as a Marine and apply it to my new role as a Dad. Not the “scream-in-your-face” stuff that Boot Camp is made of, but the real and deep leadership principles that apply to any position of loving authority. I spent about a year and a half writing stories and collecting quotes to back them up. I designed a cover. I hired an editor to proof-read and make suggestions for improvements.
I was proud of my accomplishment.
Was.
Then I started getting feedback like described above. I got some supportive feedback from family, but that’s what most family does, right? I appreciated the positive response, but it was biased in my favor so it didn’t hold as much weight on my scale of self-judgement. I got nothing positive back from people who didn’t know me.
After a while, as I sold a book or two a month, I imagined that everyone probably thought of me as my first two reviewers had. What did I know about parenting anyway? I wasn’t a family psychiatrist or anything. My only kid at the time I published was 2 years old. Maybe I did know some things about leadership, but what gave me the right to apply that to parenting?
I felt like a fake. Like an imposter. And I felt like on my very first foray into writing, I was immediately identified as a fake. A fake writer who self-published and a fake parent who had no real experience.
I started to become embarrassed that I had even written a book.
When people brought it up I quickly changed the subject.
So I stopped writing. For 10 years.
Then I read something that my friend wrote about relationships. It was beautiful. It moved me. We were similar in how we saw many things in life back then, but especially now that we were “grown-ups” and family men. He could write about the simple beauty that surrounds us with such flowing words that it seemed semantics were no obstacle for his ideas to flow directly to my brain. I was inspired.
Inspired enough to start writing again. So I did, and I’m so glad I did. I have been having an absolute blast. I look forward to writing every day. Some people have said I have even genuinely helped them with my writing. This is priceless to me. It feels like writing was meant to be part of who I am.
I recently wrote about how persistence is so important to writing. And it is. I wish I had persisted through the criticism and Imposter Syndrome 10 years ago. Who knows where I could be now. But regret is a waste of time. Hope is time better spent.
I kind of feel embarrassed as a “tough” Marine that I let a few words from a few people steer my actions for a decade. I was able to defend myself against armed enemy combatants, but words of criticism pierced right through my armor with ease. Criticism of my creation crippled me.
But now I can move forward for many reasons. I realize that in a way, all humans are impostors. We are all new to life relatively speaking. When we just begin to figure it out, we die of old age. Why should we let someone else’s opinion be more valued than our own?
We must impose ourselves upon new areas of life if we want to grow. Stepping into formerly unknown roles generates those impostor feelings. It is natural. It doesn’t mean we don’t belong there. Someone who never feels this way is usually stagnating, like I did for a decade. Anyone who has the courage to create or to do important things at all will run into criticism and feel like an impostor sometimes. These are social growing pains.
So I decided to write this article to encourage you. You who may feel like you have nothing worth hearing. You who feel your words aren’t worth sharing or you have no right to say them. You are wrong. What you have to say is worth hearing. Please keep saying it. I want you to push through.
Don’t make the mistake I did and quit. JUST. PUSH. THROUGH.
Looking back, my book did kind of suck as far as format and writing. And even though that was 10 years ago, I’m only 3 months further into my writing journey, so I’m not that much better yet. But my ideas in the book were good. I was right about leadership and parenting. I shouldn’t have let criticism devalue my belief in those ideas. If I had kept writing, that suck factor in my writing would have decreased. But I didn’t stick around long enough to make that possible.
Persistence seems to be the key when I read advice from the best writers. If you can stick around, ignore negative criticism, welcome constructive criticism and always improve your skills, then you may have a chance. Then, and only then, might you have a shot at being a successful writer.
And even if you do reach success, the feeling of being an imposter is always there and criticism will be there with it. I think maybe all of us who create may always feel these things from time to time.
Maya Angelou said “I have written 11 books, but each time I think, ‘Uh oh, they’re going to find out now! I’ve run a game on everybody, and they’re going to find me out.”
John Steinbeck said before publishing The Grapes of Wrath “I am not a writer. I’ve been fooling myself and other people.” If Maya and John have had this feeling, we all will.
Imposter Syndrome and criticism should be signs of growth to us rather than stop signs.
They stopped me for 10 years.
I’ll never allow that to happen again. I hope you don’t either.
Max Klein has an MBA, makes wine, and is a veteran. He’s also a writer. This piece originally appeared on Invisible Illness.