Self Confidence For Writers Part 4: Coping with Criticism
I've talked before about the rules of critique courtesy, but there's a big difference between responding nicely to your critiquer and handling the critique well on an emotional level. There are also many different forms of criticism you're bound to face throughout your life. Everybody faces criticism, and we all know how much it can hurt. As such, our first instinct is often to ignore the criticism, let it go like water off our backs. Sometimes this is helpful--sooner or later you're bound to encounter unfair criticism or a critique that isn't useful in any way--but often it's actually counter productive. Even the harshest criticism often has a grain of truth, and if you ignore the criticism altogether, you don't learn how to make yourself a better person or how…