Discussion #10: False Flattery

Well, as an aspiring writer, I show my work to my friends (and, to my sister, who happens to give me the most criticizing comments EVER, which I am frankly grateful for), and sometimes I can't help but think that they're giving me false flattery because

a) I'm their friend
b) They don't want to hurt my feelings

Well, basically, those two reasons could be merged together into 'they don't want to hurt my feelings because I'm their friend.' I do accuse those people of false flattery, LOL. And I'm sort of scared to go out there and get in a critic group or something like that because I don't know if I can stand all the criticism. Fine, in my speculation, I guess you're right, Cynthia, if you ever read this post..

So my friend Cynthia, who is the YA author of Transcendence and Dirty Little Secrets, apparently continues to advise me to NOT get published until I'm twenty years old. Okay, I'm impatient. Especially when I see all those authors out there under twenty..

Whenever I give people my writing to read I just hope that they'll give me both positive feedback and negative feedback. This is why, as a reviewer, I'm not afraid to criticize..

So, my sister. (Yeah yeah I know you're reading this because you're such a blog stalker, meimei)

When I give her my writing to read, she just shouts out her thoughts like there's no tomorrow.

-They talk too much!!
-She's so annoying!! Like I wanna kick her in the face and ugh she's sooo like you
-Oh my God!!
-You're so not original!
-This makes no sense!!
-He smirks too much!!
-He's so mean!!

Yep, and I just laugh but I keep these things in mind.

I can't really look over my own writing and suddenly discover something wrong with it, well, because, for example, if I want to know whether or not my guy character is considered hot, I can't really read over what I wrote and see if I start to swoon. I can't, because he's my character and I created him, I can't really just say OHH MY GOD YAHHH THIS IS SO SEXY as I type because that would sort of be calling my own brother hot.

So I do need other people to help me discover things, and maybe their flattery is real, but I'd like to hear something that would help me improve. I don't want something discouraging or negative..

Being a writer is so much harder than I had originally thought.