How to Have a Thick Skin and Learn something new

As writers, we don't often want to learn new things.  Sometimes we have that imaginary barbed wire fence that tends to block our way to something new.  We don't want to realize that we need to water the garden to get the flowers, or listen to the cow that wants us to cross the road.

We want to only hear the praise and let the bad roll off.  We sometimes get hurt or offended when someone critiscizes us.  We wish they would just go away. 

I recently had someone criticise my poetry on Triond.  Well, I always had been writing poetry my way.  I tended to write my poetry any way I wanted.  I had tossed away the unwanted sonnets or limericks or rhyming poetry that my high school teacher wanted us to learn about.

I wanted to free verse.  So for the last twenty five years I was writing poetry in free verse.  Yet, technically they probably weren't poems.  Not in the true sense.  It was a type of poetry, but not truly a poem.  Yet, I would never get rid of any of it, as I still like a lot of it, even it doesn't flow like a poem should.

A lot of it was written after my mother died, so I wouldn't change a thing about those poems.  It was a poignant piece of writing about my mother.  Enough said.

Well, a few weeks ago, this character named The Tick, started commenting on my poetry and couldn't believe how terrible it was and that it wasn't a poem.  He actually was quite rude and mean and to this day, I think his tactics weren't very nice. 

Several times I told him that it was all right to criticize but that he should have done it in a nicer, more polite way.  He was quite rude, but he was actually right.

Today, I have learned about meter.  I didn't realize until today that even free verse has to have some sort of rhythm or meter to it.  I think I am going to get the gist of meter.  I tried a few poems using it and thought it was kind of fun.

Who knows, maybe someday I will even try rhyming.  Baby steps.  Baby steps.  You figure 25 years of not knowing, it will take a little bit to get used to writing poetry in a new better way.

But we really do hate to have someone knock us down even if it is in a literal or artistic sense.  Nobody wants to be told that their stuff is terrible.  It hurts, and digs a hole into our skin.  But we have got to learn to keep a thick skin and don't let the worst get to us. 

But it is so lovely to get the praise, but in the end the praise doesn't really make us better writers.  It is the criticism and the things that we need to learn to become the better writer that we want to be that counts.

Jennifer Jo Fay

Copyrighted February 20, 2012

I guess we've got to develop the thick skin so we can take the cold hard criticsm.  I often wonder why the horse likes the cold hard winter.  Thick skin.

I drive by this horse farm every week on my way to my boyfriend's house.  This farm easily has about sixteen to twenty horses.


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http://prolificpoetrychick.blogspot.com/