Reader,

Although I left Vancouver three-and-a-half years ago, I remain a steadfast Vancouver Canucks fan. You can take the boy out of Canada, but you can't take Canada out of the boy. And for me, hockey is an integral part of what it means to be Canadian.

The last decade or so has been a rough time to be a Canucks fan. I won't bore you with all the details here. We haven't been as historically bad as the Chicago White Sox (stick tap to my long-suffering friend Davey), but there's been very little to celebrate until the last two seasons.

Now that the team has improved and looks to be hitting their stride, they're facing the weight of heightened expectations. Losses hurt more when you're expected to win. And not just on the ice: it seems like journalists' pens and fans' tongues get sharper when they don't like what they see on the ice. Especially Canucks' fans, whose reputation outside of Vancouver is less than sparkling.

You have to feel for the players in this situation. When they're on a winning streak, it feels like they can do no wrong. When the tides turn and the losses start to pile up, things get nasty.

Yet I appreciate the mindset of our current lineup of players. They don't just recognize the volatility: they also see how unreliable it is. Their interviews often highlight this refrain: "You're never as bad as they say you are, and you're never as good as they say you are."

What does this have to do with writing? Everything, of course.

As I've written about how to receive feedback these past few weeks, a lot of it has centered on a single theme: you, the writer, get to decide which feedback is helpful and which is not. Your readers and editors are not infallible, objective judges. All they can do is tell you how they experience your work. It's up to you to decide if their experience should influence your writing and revising.

This "never as bad / never as good" mindset is a crucial component to that confidence.

Bring it to mind when someone savages you and your work. When someone takes the time to say hurtful things and tear you down, that tells you more about them. There might be an element of truth to what they're saying, but it's probably too obscured in their mess to be useful to you. Which means you can confidently put their feedback straight in the trash can. (Unless that kind of thing motivates you, in which case you can frame it on your wall and hang it above your desk.)

But this mindset is also vital for the way we receive praise. We need encouragement more than those who encourage us will ever know. And yet, at the same time, we must remind ourselves that just because someone praises us doesn't mean that we've arrived. We're not perfect writers.

"Why is this important?" you might ask. "Don't I know this already?"

Well, yes, you probably do. However, I'd ask you a question in return: "How did you feel the last time criticized your writing?"

When we don't remind ourselves that "we're never as good as they say we are," it's easy to get discouraged when we receive feedback that's not all "WOW, YOU'RE AWESOME!" It might even tempt us to give up entirely, and that's a real shame.

And here's a wonderful surprise: when we adopt this mindset, we actually become better at receiving praise. It allows us to hear it with gratitude. It moves us to wonder, "What else could I do with this?" That's a far cry from thinking, "Hey, I've arrived, and now I've got to maintain this level."

Keep your stick on the ice.

Frank.