The Dreaded Critique & My New Novella

As you all know, I've been working hard on my novella.  I was thrilled with my progress, I wrote over 8000 words on it this week.  I had given my critique group half of the novella to critique and I've been going over their notes.

There were a LOT of notes.  *sigh*

Now don't mistake that sigh for one of sadness.  It's not.  I'm sighing because of the amount of work I have to still do on this book, but it's also a happy sigh.  Critiques energize me for the most part and help me really focus on the areas of my writing that need improvement.  After the initial shock of course. :)

Here is an example of one critiqued page:

 (Yes, I gave you a faraway view so you could see the marked up page.  Isn't my critique group great? So many comments.  So much help in figuring out how to improve my writing.)

But this is how I deal with critique, especially when it is intense.  I read all the comments and just let them sink in a bit. Sometimes for a day.  I don't take anything personally.  It's allllll about the writing. With that mindset,then, I get to work. Critiques can be hard to take sometimes, but if I look at it like that, I can love them!  You can, too!

I have to say, though, this was one of my favorite comments of the whole critique. I'm SO excited for you all to read more about Colby and Sophia. I'm working hard on it!