Last week, I got to lead a really fun webinar with a terrible title: "Create a Personalized Atlas for Your Book Project." (To be clear: I came up with the title.)
It was hosted by Liz Heflin of The Inkwell Community, and I was really grateful for this chance to talk about the joys and tribulations of planning a book.
During the Q&A, fellow writer (and faithful reader!) Loren asked a really great question. She's an accomplished novelist whose Daughter of Arden trilogy retells and reimagines the Grimm fairy tale "Maid Maleen." These days, she's hard at work on her next project, and she's trying a new process:
This is the first time I've been writing a book where I have a friend who's coming in along the way and giving feedback. Some of it's really helpful: "Does this make sense or does this not make sense?" Already I can see that I don't have to include certain things. But on the other hand, I don't know what to write next because it needs to look good enough for her to read it and give feedback. How do you navigate that kind of relationship? I want to continue because it's really helpful — she's also a really good writer, and it's nice to be getting the feedback — but it's also in some ways stymieing me from pushing on and continuing writing.
That is indeed a dilemma.
In the moment, I asked Loren a question: "What type(s) of feedback are helpful, and what type(s) get in your way?"
I start here because feedback is not the problem. Unless we pull a J. D. Salinger and hide our writing from the world, feedback is inevitable. Constructive feedback can make our writing clearer; hurtful feedback can be an opportunity to build strength and courage to keep writing anyway.
However, just because feedback is inevitable does not mean we have to pay attention to it.
I've learned that I'm better off not sharing initial drafts with anyone. And by "anyone" I really do mean "anyone." Whenever I do, I end up in the same place that Loren described: unable to write because I'm thinking about what the other person is going to think instead of focusing on what I have to say.
Eventually, though, my work reaches a point where feedback is exactly what I need. Still, I don't like sending my work off to someone and asking them, "What do you think?" Instead, I give them some parameters. It don't want to lead the witness (so to speak), but I also want to make sure they're assessing my work based on what it's trying to do. (Too often, people offer feedback based on what they would have done if they had written it.)
These scenarios and needs probably vary from writer to writer. What you need may be entirely different from what I need, and we're both in a different position than Loren is. Yet, this principle remains the same: when we choose to receive feedback, it's on us to do so in a way that doesn't stymie our writing.
Loren got this. Even better, she came up with some clear boundaries that will help her fine-tune that feedback process and bring some liberation to her words. That's important because the world is a better place with more of her writing in it!