The Good Critic: How To Critique
Everyone’s a critic all right. Sometimes that can be helpful, but most of the time it’s a drag. Especially when your a writer. Who are these people with their slicing comments and degrading suggestions? Why would someone actually say, “This sucks,” even if they don’t like it, or “Why don’t you just slit your wrists now?” It’s nothing but hurtful.
Writing is a process. It doesn’t always come out right the first time. That’s why we need feedback. It helps correct course and approach. But blatantly thrown rocks and knives do nothing but destroy us.
It’s not that we only want to hear the good things, but the difference between constructive criticism and a cruel blow is the difference between an improvement to a manuscript and a really crappy day, wherein we may want to slit our wrists.
So if you are ever asked for your opinion about someone’s writing, be thoughtful and truthful, but also be kind. There’s no need to say, “Well, my friend, you may want to stop with this writing fantasy of yours. Besides you don’t really have time for a hobby.”
Instead, why not suggest that you’re not the best critic for this job because the story is not generally the type you like. Or perhaps you could just smile and pick the one thing you did enjoy about it, like how cool the title is, or how well you like the font.
In her blog post from July 4, 2009, Anne R. Allen lays it out perfectly and offers great advice to writers everywhere, no matter what they write. Her suggestions of how to deal with a self-appointed critic are golden. Anne also tells us where to solicit a critique and where to avoid it. This is the good stuff.
Photo by PresleyJesus
© Julie Pierce and Brittle Skillet, 2009-2011.
Sotomayor: Latina of Clear Judgement
I vote “Yes” for Sonia Sotomayor! Listening to her responses during the questioning process of her hearing, I was impressed by the way Sotomayor remained calm and thoughtful, collected and deliberate no matter how ridiculous or heated the questions and remarks of the various senators became. This woman is a consistent thinker and is very clear about the difference between the rule of law (the stick by which every judicial decision must be measured) and her personal preferences and opinions.
Aren’t these traits exactly what we want in a Supreme Court Justice? A person who is publicly aware (by self-declaration) of her biases and the contrast between those and the rule of law — how perfect! Her track record of case decisions reflects a clear difference between her rulings and her biases, specifically in cases involving race discrimination.
Despite this clarity, there are some who are still clinging to and expressing concerns about her personal preferences regarding race and immigration policies. Out of a endless list of cases, there is only one case in which Sotomayor ruled against the white plaintiff in a racial discrimination case. Her ruling, which was unanimously shared by the two other judges on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, was in line with and supported by federal law. Sotomayor ruled by following the law, not by following her personal preferences.
The fact that the GOP continues to gin up concern about her personal biases is just silly politics as usual. Her personal preferences are really not the issue here. How does she perform as a judge? That’s the question. The answer is perfectly satisfactory: she follows the rule of law without prejudice.
Sotomayor hearings: The complete transcript, Part 1
Sotomayor hearings: The complete transcript, Part 2
Poster by Favianna Rodriguez, presente.org
© Julie Pierce and Brittle Skillet, 2009-2011.
Teaching Our Kids Respect
We must teach our kids respect. The state of our society depends on it. I’m not sure how or why, but our culture, in the main, seems to have left this lesson by the roadside.
Respect for authority and our elders and choices about what language is okay are important aspects of the bigger picture. But what I’m specifically targeting here is respect for self and respect for others. I believe that if these foundational aspects of respect are instilled from the very start, the other types of respect will fall into place.
I realize that I am making broad generalizations here, but these generalizations seem perfectly appropriate to the prevalent lack of these two types of respect within our larger American society today. CNN’s series Black in America offers great examples of how this segment of our population is addressing the challenge of respect in their own ways within the scope of their larger challenges to give their kids a fighting chance toward future success. But on the whole and across our communities at large, the opportunity and need for these lessons is greater than the response to them.
There is a group of people for whom the natural biological drive is to conquer and control the world around them, abusing resources, including people, to achieve their own pleasure or success. The self-selecting members of this Group A are usually, but not always, boys.
By contrast and in compliment, there is a second group of people for whom the natural biological drive is to nurture and support, accommodate and supply. The self-selecting members of this Group B are usually, but not always, girls. By nature, A and B are a perfect fit.
Specifically, and here I continue the broad generalizations, the lesson of society for the Group A member child is that he should make the world his own. Group A member children are taught that complying with parents or other authority is often a good strategy to ultimately get what they want and keep the waters calm. But ultimately, it is for the selfish execution of his own gain, not the cooperative gain, and it leads to the neglect of this child’s own inner moral checkpoints.
In general, members of Group B are taught to gain the positive attention and approval of others, to please others frequently at the cost of their own inner motivations. At some point in childhood, this lesson translates itself into the Group B member child turning these external motivators into internal motivators. This practice leads to the neglect of this child’s own inner voice and her inner moral checkpoints.
I am not suggesting that we deny nature, but rather work with it. The strengths and natural leaning of Group A members and Group B members are useful and good for the cooperative progress of community. However, the natural biological drives, instead of being enhanced by what our culture is currently teaching, should be consciously recognized as such, and then monitored and modified, redirected with intentional choice and an awareness of consequences.
Respect for others builds a foundation for compassion and deters against harming and exploiting others. Respect for self keeps our ears open to our own inner motivations and enables us to exercise a balance between nurturing and supporting others while nurturing and supporting ourselves. Both kinds of respect provide a mechanism of guidance from moral checkpoints that we, presumably, also learn along the way to adulthood. The first place a child of either group learns both kinds of respect is by watching the adults around him model it. Let’s all practice respect.
Resources that suggest how to teach and model respect:
- How You Can Teach Your Kids Respect, by Steve McChesney
- Teaching Kids Respect, by Anne Leedom
- Teaching Guide: Respect for Grades K-5
- Kids’ Health: Respect – a way of life
- Kids for Peace – Uplifting Our World Through Love and Action
Photo by g-hat
© Julie Pierce and Brittle Skillet, 2009-2011.
Phone and Crash: Driving While Distracted
I have a simple request for every human on our planet: no driving while distracted.
Is it really necessary to be talking on the phone or texting at the very same time you drive from here to there? If you must talk right now, if the conversation cannot wait till your vehicle has come to a complete stop (for the duration of the conversation), then pull over.
This is a matter of life and death. It’s as significant as drinking and driving. The severity of the situation is eloquently explained and supported in William Saletan’s article Driving While Interrogated on Slate.com. He includes quoted information from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in a never-released draft of proposed policy.
I realize it’s easier to suggest pulling over for a phone call than it is in actual practice — there isn’t always a safe and convenient place to pull over. But that’s only one of the suggestions that Saletan makes in his article. In fact, he provides four reasonably conceived solutions that could be effective with enforcement. Well, that’s my opinion. He’s not so sure himself.
Here in Seattle, we do have a not-so-effective hands-free law, which states that you must be using a hands-free technology when phoning while driving. The irritatingly amusing thing is that no one seems to have gotten the memo. It’s illegal to drive and hold the phone simultaneously, Seattlelites! Of course, the law makes talking into a handset while driving a secondary misdemeanor so you can’t be pulled over specifically for that.
Regardless of whether Slaten’s got the answers or not, we must think about the choices we make while driving. It’s not just how our choices have an impact on our immediate world — me, my passengers, and my vehicle — but everyone else on the road too. As with anything that takes our brain away from the task of driving, we are in a state of consciousness that endangers all the other citizens of the road, including the undecided squirrels and misguided armadillos.
Maureen Dowd, distinguished op-ed columnist for the New York Times, is with me and Saletan on this one! How about you?
Added Aug 13, 2009:
More coverage on driving while distracted from the Washington Post brings home the point even further. The fact that many states have laws against talking and texting while driving, and all of these laws are executable only as secondary offenses illustrates the lame jab at the situation taken by lawmakers. There is virtually no way to enforce these laws. And although the American public pays lip service to being irritated by drivers acting irresponsibly in this way, which one of us is driving without talking or texting all of the time?
View the quiz from the Washington Post, and then return here to share your thoughts about talking and texting while driving and related laws.
Added Aug 25, 2009:
A PSA presented in the U.K. leaves no doubts about the dangers. The link in the previous sentence takes you to an article about the PSA, in which you’ll find a link to the PSA itself. Be ware, the PSA is very graphic and disturbing, achieving the desired effect. Perhaps we need a strong message of the same ilk for our public here in the U.S. Without it, are we getting the message?
Added Aug 27, 2009:
John Cook of TechFlash shares another poll from PEMCO about texting while driving and considers whether it should be a primary offense.
Graphic by Mike “Dakinewavamon” Kline
© Julie Pierce and Brittle Skillet, 2009-2011.
Lunar Gaffiti: Your Logo or Domain Name on the Moon
Unbelievable! No, I take that back. Of course this is happening. Of course there are people willing to spend a minimum of $46,000 to put their logo, domain name, or memorial on the surface of the moon. What?
AngecySpy from mediabistro.com alerted me to this baffling phenomenon. There are (at least) two things wrong with this prospect. The first is that this is astro-pollution, as far as I can tell. And the second is the waste: time, money, and effect. Perhaps that totals four things wrong with the undertaking.
The technology that does the deed is referred to as “Shadow Shaping” and it makes ridges in the lunar surface using robots. The environmental pollution seems potentially enormous, no?
Inventory of waste: the material to make the robots (eventually they will become scrap), the rockets of some sort to get the robots up there (more eventual scrap), and the fuel involved in transport. Add to that the wasted time (clearly my opinion) involved in the creation and execution of said project. These engineers could be making something less polluting, perhaps even pollution reducing.
I don’t know about you, but my group of friends and family does not include anyone with $46,000 available for moon etching — as far as I’m aware. And finally, what effect of value do the representative ridges achieve? How will anyone see the ridges for them to create an effect, unless of course the viewer is doing a little sightseeing while space traveling?
Maybe I’m missing something, but moon etching strikes me as a ridiculously wasteful, self-aggrandizing exercise for folks with more money than sense. This opportunity is being brought to us by a company called Moon Publicity. So the natural question is, who (or what) is receiving the publicized message? Creepy.
© Julie Pierce and Brittle Skillet, 2009-2011.
The Expansion of Evil . . . and Good
Is the world becoming a crueler more heinous place? As humans, are we becoming more violent and defensive? Is the divide between us and “the other” becoming greater? Or have we as a species made strides in the other direction?
I was having this conversation with a friend over dinner the other night, and I was shocked to learn that she is rather fearful that indeed we are becoming more barbaric and abominable. In my friend’s observations of the world through history, ancient and recent, she’s noticed a trend toward worse behavior; evil is on the rise. She’s sure that we are treating each other more brutally than ever. Have we learned nothing from the past?
While I agree with my friend that we can easily find many examples of sad scenarios and inhumanity throughout the world around us, I was quick to point out that perhaps the world is expanding in both directions: toward evil and toward good at the same time. Also, it might be useful to remember that good and evil are often a matter of perspective.
I imagine that we are standing on a continuum that is continually moving out in two directions — directions of opposites — at any given time and in any given aspect. It’s a very basic idea that we know of one quality by distinction from its opposite. For example, there is no understanding up without the inherent understanding of down.
With this in mind, it might be useful for us to focus on the good side of the continuum. I like to believe that the good is expanding in balance with the evil; while the human race becomes more despicable, it also becomes more virtuous at once.
To help me keep my focus on the growing good, I read Ode Magazine and try to bring in something positive to every conversation I have. Some days I’m better at this than others. Wouldn’t it be great if we could have a consistently balanced view of reality such that we aren’t bogged down in the gloom and doom, nor are we annoyingly Panglossian with our heads in the clouds?
Graphic by Zeusandhera
© Julie Pierce and Brittle Skillet, 2009-2011.
Suicide by Novel Writing: NaNoWriMo Killed Her
Did I succumb to the seduction of compulsive word counting and incessant discussion monitoring? Did I find reasons to do the writing “later”? Did I fail to achieve 50,000 words because I don’t actually know that many words? Yes, yes, and no.
Of course, I know enough words – and some will inevitably be repeated anyway – but I couldn’t get 50,000 of them down in black in white within 30 days. As any procrastinator will tell you, “I have my reasons.”
For example, the amount of laundry needing to be done on your average month suddenly grew. Cleaning projects that were once easily ignored became aggressive, loudly demanding immediate attention. The cats were feeling especially neglected and needy during the month of November, and who can resist those sweet, imploring eyes; you’ve all seen Shrek, right? Then of course, there was Thanksgiving with family obligations and mounds of cooking followed by hours-on-end of eating. And those are just a few of the distractions that interfered with my word count.
I wanted to participate fully, be present for my fellow writers and engage with new friends via the regional and topical discussions. I didn’t want to miss an invitation to a write-off event – wherein participants gather at a local venue and vigorously write en masse. The energy of such gatherings promises to inspire and shove you out of stuckness.
And don’t tell me that if you are trying to achieve a certain number of words, you don’t need to count how many you’ve already written. Of course you do. You need to count your words – at least once every 15 minutes – to make sure you are on track and to give you that “I can do this” feeling.
And such was the demise of this writer during my first NaNoWriMo challenge. It was not for naught, as they say. I learned a lot about myself, the writing process, concentration, The Zone, and my family and friends.
One of the reasons I wanted to take this challenge was to exercise what I like to call “total freedom writing” – anything goes, don’t bring a map or a plan, follow whimsy and stream of consciousness. I tend to get hung up with my inner editor, negotiating word choice and the application of punctuation to the detriment of any real progress. I wanted to completely abandon any inhibitions and run nakedly through the vast expanse of white pages and black words.
It was absolutely wonderful! This is a sense of freedom I will keep close and use to remind myself to have no fear when the dark clouds of self-doubt are looming. Emotionally, The Land of No Judgements is the most fantastic place I’ve ever been.
It is in this land that I found The Zone. A place I had heard about, but couldn’t really imagine until I experienced it myself, this place of endless oxygen, clarity, and free movement is addictive. This aspect of theNaNoWriMo challenge helped me tear myself away from the distractions trying to hog-tie me into defeat and submission. If I got nothing else out of the experience, this one is a forever shining gem.
I did take Chris Baty’s advice by telling every one of my friends and family that I was attempting to write 50,000 words – a short novel – within the 30 days of November. I did try to create a schedule whereby I could corral specific spaces of time for the writing. And while the support from my people was mixed, my discipline to the schedule was miserable. For details of how I failed with the schedule, revisit paragraphs three and four above.
At this point, I am less than 7,000 words in. I’m still unclear about what genre I’m writing, and I still don’t know why I’m following these particular characters or what their story will ultimately be. There has not been a lot of action so far, but the characters are well-sketched and I do care about them. That’s got to count for something.
Many of you wrote to me to lend support during the NaNoWriMo challenge. Thank you! These booster shots of encouragement were like my favorite desert with no calories, delivering an energy rush minus the bulging thighs. Without your enthusiasm to balance out some of the neutral support I was experiencing, I don’t think I would have even gotten as far as I did.
So, the event didn’t really kill me, no. But it did kill some of my preconceived notions about writing a novel. It also killed some of the expectations I have for getting outside support and encouragement. While I did have quite a few cheerleaders, I need to find a way to keep their voices ringing in my ears to drown out the others that didn’t get it. No one outright said anything discouraging, but I can read faces and I know when someone thinks I’m a lovable fool.
I would recommend NaNoWriMo to all writers. It’s good training and gets you in shape in ways that other writing does not, no matter how many words you end up with, and no matter what kind of story evolves. The insight you gain into yourself and your own world is unique and unattainable through any other methods.
First published by Inkwell Newswatch (IN)
Under the nom de plume Penelope Jensen
© Julie Pierce and Brittle Skillet, 2009-2011.
National Novel Writing Month: The 50,000 Word Challenge
I open this blog with the fear that I may soon expire. As many participants did, I began writing toward the 50,000 word goal with enthusiastic vigor and staunch ambition. In week three, I’m beginning to deflate and I’m showing signs of fatigue. Do I give up? I’m so far away from the goal, is it even still possible to achieve?
I’ll grind away at the word count with the hope that all will turn out well. This is a challenge of will and endurance; a marathon of language and imagination. I know the experience will give me valuable insight into myself as a would-be novelist. Can I actually hack it?
National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is a great idea for those who want to take a novice stab at writing a novel. Joining in has given me a sense of community among a diverse group of writers. We are joined together in a monumental effort over the course of 30 days. I can imagine my fellow NaNoWriMo compatriots vigorously pounding away at their keyboards, whittling away the white space, filling it with another day of 1,700 words.
Let this wretched feeling of looming defeat pass me by like a cloud carried on the wind. Although I struggle to make my daily word count, I try my best. Why did I spend three hours today watching TV when I could have been crushing the count? If only my parents had put me in the NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program when I was a teen. (Never mind that it didn’t exist back then.)
Onward I’ll toil like a good soldier fighting for a cause she only mostly understands. For the portion that escapes my comprehension, perhaps it will reveal itself once the calendar page has turned.
© Julie Pierce and Brittle Skillet, 2009-2011.
