No Jivin’ July 8, 2010
Posted by nrhatch in Blogging, Humor, Poetry, Writing & Writers.trackback
It’s hard to be a reviewer
It’s hard to know how to please
Some people want solid feedback
Others want you to appease
(or bow down on bended knees)
Some writers want you to edit
and catch all the typos they missed
Others seek adulation and praise
Point out mistakes, and they get pissed
(and, in e-mail, you may get dissed)
It’s easier to stand on the sidelines
and let someone else “drop the axe”
Or just heap on endless platitudes
like, “This is the best ~ in fact, it’s the max!”
(even if the writing’s a wee bit lax)
But your own work improves when you edit
and give solid feedback . . . with no jivin’
So, the best advice I can give you
is just step up on the block, and dive in
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Hey! That’s the best poem I have read of your yet. (Just some honest feedback- grin grin).
I wrote this awhile back on WEbook because I noticed so many writers standing on the sidelines, rather than commenting on work that desperately needed polishing in order to shine.
It’s just another incentive, perhaps to continue in the development. There’s always that ‘schizophrenic’ voice that urges us on to perfection.
Not me . . . Good Enough is Good Enough:
https://nrhatch.wordpress.com/2010/06/28/good-enough-2/
Progress interests me . . . perfection does not. : )
That perks up my sense of humor. When do we really know that what we have written is ‘good enough’. I understand when I have completed something, in that I don’t feel I have any more to add.
That completely, I agree, is not perfection. So perhaps I do get your point.
It’s good enough when WE decide it’s good enough.
That doesn’t mean it’s ready for print publication . . . it means WE are ready to share it with the world (or hide it in the bottom desk drawer) and move on to something else.
Your little poem should be shared with every critique group. I really dislike it when someone in my group simply says: I liked your piece. I couldn’t find anything wrong with it.
Nancy ~
Feel free to share it with your group if you want. When I first wrote it, a fellow WEbooker suggested that it should be added to the FAQ’s page.
I wrote another post for Rik’s project, Tips & Traps, giving the Top 10 reasons people don’t give honest feedback . . . and the Top 10 reasons that they should. : )
I love this poem. So appropriate! 😀
Thanks, Maggie.
Every reviewer will have a different view of our writing. Often readers are not fully honest in the feedback they provide either because they don’t want to hurt our feelings . . . or because they do. 😉