I don’t do this very often but I’m going to write something serious. Don’t worry, I’ve dotted scatological humour throughout 🙂
I’ve written rantingly about this before, but CBabe has raised the subject again and it put me in mind of some thoughts I had before, but which were all sincere and not funny!
Should we write critically about other people’s posts? By critically I don’t mean shouting “you’re crap” and then running away, but critical in the sense of offering constructive feedback.
For some of us this question creates all sorts of wibbles and wobbles.
On a basic level the answer is easy. Should we write critically? Maybe. Just ask the blogger if they mind critical feedback – if they say yes then provide it.
(But do remember there are times when it is clear that critical feedback is not appropriate.)
Only it often doesn’t feel that simple.
Why is this?
Dysfunctional Artists
There are two extremes when creating something and putting it in the world. The one extreme is utter fear, where in fact no creativity is let out – and even normal words are hard to utter sometimes.
The other extreme is complete egocentrism, where no-one else’s thoughts or opinions matter at all and creativity is put out and thought of as brilliant and beyond reproach.
The fearful person has a dysfunctional relationship to their art. If anyone criticises their art the fearful person believes that such criticism reflects upon them personally too. Offering thoughts on re-working their sculpture hurts them as much as being mean about their looks or intelligence. It isn’t seen for the ‘offered idea’ it is, but as an attack. If their sculpture isn’t good enough then they aren’t good enough.
The egocentric also has a dysfunctional relationship to their art. If anyone criticises it then they are ignored or dismissed as an idiot, because “I am perfect and thus so is my art.”
Fairly extreme examples, but we are all on the scale between them, sometimes in different places about different things, even at different times.
One day, waking happy, I am ready for criticism about my guitar playing because I know I’m good but also that I have much to learn. The next day someone criticising my finger-picking will have me in tears, because today I’m playing for the anniversary of my lost child.
How difficult it can be to know how our criticism might be received! We might critique a post one day and be thanked, the next day be shouted at and the next be unfollowed and our goats set on fire.
All Acts Are Art (or AAAA for short!)
It is important to try and make our expressions mindful, to try and live life in a way that does not cause harm and to not deliberately speak harshly.
That said, we cannot know how our words or actions will be interpreted. I offered some condolence to a friend recently only to anger them. I have said mean things in a bad mood only to see my target laugh and say “you’re a good bloke.”
If I say, “you’re crap,” it does not make me evil. I might be having a bad day. I might be in great pain. I might be right.
Equally, if I say “you are lovely,” it does not make me nice. I might say it to everyone without meaning it, I might be after something and flattering you. I might be wrong.
In any case I cannot control people’s response to either my kindness or cruelty. People are mental! They have agendas, weird beliefs, paranoias, arrogance… it’s a minefield. All we can do is be mindful of ourselves, and accept our intentions were good – then trust to the world with our offerings.
It helps to remember that we are not what we ‘create’. I write songs, I am not songs. You write posts, you are not those posts.
We are not our words, our sculptures, our posts, photographs or any other expression of ourselves. All these expressions are acts of personal art, once made they are separate from ourselves and we must detach from them.
Blendships
Sucking up to everyone with “love your work,” and “ooh you’re brilliant,” is fine if you want a relationship of stagnant mutual masturbation. Many of us do. But a deeper friendship requires more honesty, which may sometimes be painful.
What do you want? What does the blogger want?
This clearly isn’t just about blogging, although the blog-o-sphere has its own unique etiquette.
Real friendships require us to be vulnerable and to be fully ourselves. We risk meeting, and will inevitably find, people who hate us for what we are, not because we’re crap, not because they’re evil, just because we don’t match each other – at least not right now.
People who really know you can’t be mean to you, because they know your story and the battles you have fought to be who you are. So anyone who is mean to you does not know you. So it cannot be personal. In which case they’re not being mean to you, they’re just being mean.
Your expressions (posts, photo’s, poems etc.) are yet another step away from being you. Any criticism, good or bad, has no relationship to you. Good or bad, critique is just thought – take it, rewrite in its light, or ignore it. No harm done.
Ask Ask Ask
As faceatthewindow commented to me – if you’re going to give it, be ready to take it. (I think she was secretly being a bit dirty! Okay, I just hope she was. Alright, but leave me with my fantasies will you.)
In the blog-o-sphere some will not want criticism. That’s not why they’re here. Maybe they’re too arrogant to think they need it, maybe they get criticism elsewhere, maybe their too shy to cope with it.
Others are here and willing or brave enough to learn and will welcome criticism.
Whichever is the case, both those who offer critique and those who receive it, only need to follow the same rule that a few more people could do with following in the real world.
Be forgiving. Be understanding. Be open. Be mindful.
Always bear in mind that criticism is of the work, not the self. The critic may be as frightened as the one critiqued, and is making themselves vulnerable both to try and offer new perspectives and potentially a deeper blog-friendship. Honour that vulnerability.
The blogger is making themselves vulnerable by posting, so be gentle as well as honest in your critique.
More than anything – Just Ask! It may be the first step in a more beautiful Blendship 🙂
Rule of Stupid 
Whoa! I like your posts! Bookmarked! 😉
This is much better than a turd in my comment box 😉
I believe I would have been able to hold my attention to this longer if it weren’t as long as a novella. 😉 Anyone comes at me with a hug, if I had a gun it’d be loaded and cocked. I disagree that writing is only purely art and we need to let go once it’s written. Even if it is “just” art I don’t think we should just be able to let it go. In a literal sense, or how I am interpreting it, that’d be like meeting a person, falling in love and once you write or speak of this love, let the love go. That sounds silly, but that’s placing what you wrote on a different situation to show what I got from that. I know I am over-explaining, hush!
If I create art by writing or drawing, or anything, it’s a facet of who I am. It is very personal and I keep it, even if I sell it, it’s still me and I refuse to let go. I had that thought, I felt those feelings. My creations and words are my essence. They ground me. I am practicing to accept criticism as easily as I accept praise. I like feedback. If you misinterpret my expression in a post and I misinterpret your response (warranted or not), that mixed communication we will both learn from. And if negative feedback is given it is to be taken personal whether that be looked at as dysfunctional or not. Someone put themselves in the open and took a chance, they are allowed to feel how they want on your feedback as you are allowed to feel on their piece.
Love must not be held tightly, it will be crushed, but let it go and it will remain.
Art is not a facet of who you are – you lose nothing in giving it away except YOUR ATTACHMENT to it. Art is an expression FROM yourself at a point in time. In its creation it has already moved FROM you, it is already no longer OF you. Also, the moment it has been created, you begin to change and are no longer the artist who created it.
To be truly healthy, your relationship to your art should be the same as to any material thing. If your sense of self depends on anything external, you are vulnerable, as all objects are vulnerable to being broken. If your sense of self is dependent only upon YOU, you are in total control of whether you get hurt or not.
Don’t practice accepting criticism as easily as you accept praise, practice accepting neither EASILY, but both MINDFULLY. Praise can corrode as easily as criticism.
I disagree. I also am more than capable of reading without YOU LAYING ON THE CAPS LIKE IT’S YOUR NEW COMFORTABLE PILLOW. If I am vulnerable more for it, I accept it. It’s me.
I LIKE using CAPS. It’s me. 🙂 Acceptance IS the MAIN thing, I’M talking NOT trying TO convert ANYONE to A religion OR anyTHING 🙂
Also, you as an “artist” are externalizing yourself in your art. Completely different from looking at it as something that’s external and no longer you. Also, I am my blog. My first post is a representation of me, parts of me. I still have all the facets that make me who I am. I’m not changed from being that person that wrote that piece, I am still that artist, I grow, I do not change (talk about mpd). My writings are not material things. That just sounds shallow or vapid. Just my opinion.
Reblogged this on succexy and commented:
Keep in mind that this is similar to reading a novella. Luckily he writes well. Or she. I saw Catfish. Look up Catfish if you’ve not heard of it. Scary shiz. Or just really strange. Trust no one on the internet! OK End here. xo
I like getting comments on my posts, whether it be full of hearts or full of nasty quips. hell, sometimes I actually learn something!
To hell with you and your open mindedness, how dare you! 😉
Me open minded? Never!
Phew!
“People who really know you can’t be mean….they’re just being mean.”
A very clear expression of what it means to be compassinate. Well said.
Art is not the object. It is an action, a process, a “way”. It is the whole action of [creator>act>object>observer]. The object created is not a facet of the artist, but rather the jewel, the facet and the momentary flash of light conspire to create a glint or glints in the eyes…
Beautifully said sir. For me it’s only once we can break away from our quasi-jealous relationship to our own creations (art yes, but down to each word in conversation) that we can be free to enter what is, not just what our stompy-inner child wishes was!
*breaths roaring dragonfire*
Releases enormous fart, lit by dragon-fire, singes own ring. *regrets*
Hm… I am sitting here thinking if I actually have a perspective on this one… I think I am a little hardened by grad school where they beat you into submission every day to the point you had to let go of the “work,” if only for survival. I don’t really want to dig into people’s work here and analyze every detail. I am reading for fun and to support other writers by reading their shit, if I like it, of course. That does help. So interesting to see your serious side? When is bad panda coming back? 😉 X
Each to their own, as long as no babies are harmed 😉
Tomorrow, the final blog tips shall come. Rejoice!
Cool!
Question: At what point in life were you first called to “bleed upon the page” and . . . what happens to your erasures and deletes? (Just askin’)
I can’t pretend to anything as noble as being called. Words were the labyrinth in which I could hide myself as a child while the world came undone. When something has protected you so well against so much, you can’t help but fall in love.
My erasures and deletes? They are available at http://www.buystufftopostcozyourbrainsnotworking.com 😉
I like this one a lot. I love it when you get serious!
I think that this is so right on. I’m working on a post for another blog about compassionate editing, and accepting critique, and how one has to realize that a critique of their work is not exactly a critique of them as a human. But it can feel like that at times, like when you mentioned finger picking about the death of a child.
One thing that comes to mind for me is the difference between public criticism and private. I feel that personally, if someone sent me a private email that was all about critiques they had of my public work that I did not specifically ask for critiques on, I’d be much more happy about it than if they publicly wrote that info on my blog. That’s just me. I would feel more pressure with a public critique since A) I didn’t ask for it from them, B) Everyone gets to see it and C) Everyone gets to see me respond. But I guess it really all depends on the situation and the day and the content of the piece (A critique of someone’s essay about Freud and Jung is different than a critique of their feelings about having a divorce)
I do agree – sometimes it’s just not appropriate to critique (like someone’s rant about the price of coffee) – and it’s hard to have such a critique in public. I guess a degree of sensitivity and sense will see us through that 🙂
Yeah – you inspired me again… thanks. I guess. I really only intended my blog to contain fiction, but between you and a few other blogs I’ve discovered, I find myself inspired to write more intimately than I’ve ever done before. Having said that, I completely separate myself from my ‘art.’ Once it is posted, it has its own existence entirely separate from my own. As John Green says, “Books belong to the reader.”
So comment and criticize as much as you like. I retain the right to accept and absorb as much or as little as I choose.
Okay Jaschmehl. I am happy to crit, and happy if the blogger doesn’t agree, so I shall crit you mercilessly 😉 You asked for it!
Your relationship to your art sounds very healthy. I hope you enjoy ‘getting real’ with your blog as much as I have.
I love it when you offer criticism or alternatives to what I toss up on the blog. Just so you know…
I do, and likewise. What with your new name, you may need to take care with your phrasing 😉
Hello ROS: Sorry not to have been by but it’s been a zoo in the household the past four days. Well-spoken re. the art of feedback with apt reminders. I find critical feedback difficult to do in cyberspace. I don’t offer if it’s a first time visit but eventually if there is a link made, then I will. I also look for comment tags like yours (I thrive on criticism) to make sure that I might not inadvertently offend. I don’t want to be the reason someone stops writing poetry – even if it was not my intention. I can relate to your statement that ‘The critic may be as frightened as the one critiqued.’ As always the visuals on these leave me chortling. Take care dear one.
Thank you Flowers. I guess it depends on whether they write poetry for themselves or an audience. Don’t be too scared though, there’s a lot of people who should stop writing poetry! 😉
I don’t know – I don’t expect to get critiqued, exactly, when I post. In the first place, blogging is not like revised writing – I certainly know I can write better than I do on my blog, I just choose to blog sometimes, instead of revise. I like conversations about the content, not the writing. And if someone asks for feedback, great. Have at it. But once it’s published, why critique style & form unless they request it? Unless it’s just a chance to use CAPS a lot.
DULY NOTED MELANIE! I love MY CAPS! Normally I’d be flinging my arms about in unnerving gesticulations – and caps-lock is a GOOD replacement!
Bottom line – the post is more about our selves, attachment and friendship, offered obliquely through a look at blog feedback. It’s been good to hear different views – everyone has their own purpose for blogging, not everyone wants critique (or needs it, or writes material that warrants/suits it). But everyone should CAPS sometimes – it’s good for the soul!
This art speaks to me . . . actually it hits me smack in the forehead at just the right time. I came over here from Combat Babe’s. I just had a fiasco at my own blog (well, fiasco for me, which is kind of lame, but whatever) and got my first negative comments and I overreacted and took down the post. Then I got some feedback and encouragement (like from CB) and I put it back up. THEN I wondered if that was even worse. Some people call these complexes. But really it has to do with what you said about how YOU are not your ART (I heard you like CAPS). I have a tough time separating myself from my art. But I think it was good that I put the post back up, and I am determined to never take one down again.
I don’t think your post is too long. This might be because all my posts are too long. I also love your stickmen. They are crazy endearing. That’s why I immediately followed you – not because I just follow whatever blog I see because I like hitting that follow button. Although I do like hitting that button. You hit my button. Thanks.
That might have sounded dirty. Good.
It did sound dirty. I liked it 🙂
I’m glad you got something good from my scribbles. I’m actually mangling a very similar themed post as we speak – how exciting!
Post I say – to hell with them – sometimes the negatives are the best for you! For further explanations and some emotional ansty-wranglings, see my post on an hour or so – woo!
I will. To see some up and down up and down and what the hell am I talking about whiny posts, see my blog posts with the Warning: in front of them. Or you can look at my other posts that are bound to be better. You know you want to.
I do, I will 🙂
Oh, and ironically, I was being criticized for being critical of another blogger who got the FP goodies a bunch of times because I’m supposed to be supportive of everybody. Or something. Whatever.
Good friends tell you when you’re a twat. That IS supportive. Bah!
For better or worse I haven’t copped any criticism with what I have written thus far, but your post does intrigue me. What do they really feel or think? Are they just being kind? I tend to ramble a bit, I post a lot, I have a Memoir out and started another Novel, but sadly possibly..I blog more than I write.. what does that say about me? That I enjoy getting instantaneous recognition by blogging more so than tediously trying to come up with the plot and suffer on a daily basis? 🙂
In saying that I would welcome criticism on anything that I write. **Hides** as I may very well get it from the ROS.
🙂
There is a personal element in blogging, an extra element of heart-sharing, which is why crit is difficult, because many do not ‘write’ as writers but are writing a diary ‘in public’. This can be a kind of ‘affirmational’ drug and very addictive 🙂
I shall be dropping by but fear not. I’m not so cruel really… he he …
I quiver….with what …anticipation? excitement? Good Morning to you ROS 🙂
Morning Ramblemum. I’ll be adventuring in the real world today, but will return tomorrow for inspection! 😉
I shall stand to attention for inspection 🙂 Have a delightful day in the real world.. 🙂