5 Ways to Think Differently About Feedback (Even if it Makes You Anxious)
...a minimalist writing retreat, and last day to sign up for discounted rates on the Spring Writers' Circles.
Hello, friends old and new!
A whole bunch of new people have signed up for the newsletter in the past few weeks—welcome! This is where I share updates about my editing and consulting work, as well as my thoughts about what makes writing sustainable and fun (like developing swagger, hosting solo writing retreats and the case for starting more than you finish). Everyone I work with gets added to the newsletter, but always feel free to unsubscribe if this isn’t your jam! If it is your jam, and you want to help me get 150 more readers, you can feel free to share it as well.
Housekeeping
Before we talk about our topic today—how to solicit feedback, even if it makes you anxious—I have a few quick announcements.
Friday Nov 17 - Minimalist writing retreat! If you’re looking to get some writing done before the end-of-year crunch, join us for Friday’s minimalist writing group! It’s free, it’ll be fun, and we’ll be writing all day, so pop in as suits your schedule and goals. Information and sign up are here.
Spring Writers’ Circles! These are almost full, and tomorrow is the last day to apply and receive the November discount (no payment is due now, just the application form) If you want a space to work with other really smart people who are also writing, these circles are for you. You can get more information here, and apply here. Come write with us!
“This is probably terrible, but…”
I was recently talking with a group of writers (how I spend the best of my time these days), and one of them told us about a conference panel where everyone—even really brilliant, accomplished scholars—prefaced their presentations with things like “I wrote this on the plane, so it ain’t great…” and “I know this data is wonky, so don’t look too closely at it…” and “I know this is really rough, but…” In even a very supportive writing community, people felt the need to protect their work (and themselves) from criticism by undermining it. During this conversation, three thoughts came to my mind:
First: “This sounds SO familiar…” And sure enough, the very smart Miriam Plotinsky writes about this as “The Disclaimer” in her new book about teaching high school writing differently, which I had the pleasure of reviewing and excerpting for Edutopia.
Second thought: “If conferences aren’t the space to share works in progress for formative feedback with smart folks, then where else in our lives do we have that opportunity?” Although conferences play different roles in different disciplines, we badly need a place to share writing when it’s still raw, so we can make the ideas better (and then fix the writing later). We need feedback (more on that below).
And third, it dawned on me: “Holy smokes, I do this all of the time with my own work.” I edit for a living, love it, am good at it, and I still, all the time, try to shield myself from the vulnerability of the feedback (that I actually really want!) If I do this, how must it feel for other people to share their work with me?
At this point in the article, my cat had a bad dream and needed to finish his nap on my lap, so I typed the next few sections like this.
Feeling Anxious about Feedback, and Seeking it Anyway
On some level, we all feel anxiety when we check our email and there is feedback waiting for us, whether the subject is MANUSCRIPT DECISION or CHAPTER EDITS. I don’t think the stress is going anywhere (though it’s worth managing! Stop hiding from your editor! She wants to read your unpolished work! She won’t judge you! She would be out of a job if you wrote perfect things every time! /end rant).
Of course the irony is that most of us write for partially instrumental and communal reasons, right? We want an audience of our peers to read what we write, engage with the ideas, cite us, think we’re smart…we just often don’t want people to engage with our writing to do that. But alas, we need to. So here are five ways that you can help yourself get the feedback you need, even when it’s hard.
Do you really need feedback yet? I am going to write about this more in a future column, because I think we should be more thoughtful about at what stage we seek feedback from folks not involved in our project. Too much feedback from too many different kinds of people can leave a manuscript feeling distorted or can shake your confidence at too early a stage. If you feel uncertainty, see if you can write (and read, and then write) your way to the other side of that. I tell people all the time that it’s too early to hire me (and they may never need to—that what they actually need to do is to keep writing).
Okay you do need feedback, what kind and when? Early on, friendly readers! You need people to say “yup that’s neat!” and “ooh, this is cool - did you think about that?” and otherwise leave you alone and tell you to keep writing. A little later, you’ll want developmental feedback, from someone familiar enough with your field and its conventions to give insight into structure, organization, voice, argument, and analysis. After that, you probably want content-level feedback from an expert. Then, stylistic feedback on the voice and writing. Finally, mechanical feedback on the sentence level itself.
But that’s a lot of stages! You said too much feedback is bad! I know…but I also think most writing goes through five drafts before it’s ready—and that corresponds to the five levels of feedback I just outlined above. You need feedback, just iteratively.
Fine. So where does this feedback come from? Great question! It might come from yourself. You probably are great at doing at least some of these stages yourself. It might come from a friendly reader, a mentor, or someone with whom you swap manuscripts and read each other’s early work. You might also decide you want to hire an editor to help with one or two of the stages. Feedback also, obviously, comes from presentations and conferences and workshops and journal editors and reviewers.
The key here is to be very prescriptive with early editors about what you’re looking for (“I really loved your latest work on rethinking the mating rituals of manatees, can you tell me if that debate is accurately represented in this case study?) (“I feel like I’m equivocating too much because I don’t want xx group to think I’m dumb. Can you help me identify places where my voice could be stronger?”—the book Revise is excellent on this point)
So what do I do with the existential dread that still comes when comments show up in my inbox? I had a very interesting experience last year where I was working with two different editors of my own work, on articles for two popular outlets. I realized that when I opened emails from Editor A, I had the butterflies in my stomach, but the excited kind. She was really good at line editing, and made me sound more like me: she chipped away at all of the excess and equivocation and tangents and sharpened my writing. I loved working with her.
When I opened emails from Editor B, I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. She was really kind and supportive and encouraging, but she didn’t make me sound like me. It was a more technically correct but less authentic piece, and that made me feel anxious because the overediting made it hard for me to get my voice back. Both were stressful processes, but one felt like the good, collaborative type of stress.
I share this story not to editor-shame, but to emphasize the importance of compatibility between you and the person you’re working with, whether an editor, co-author, or writing group. You want to curate your feedback partners so that they are making the project the better version of itself, whatever stage of the writing process you’re in. If you don’t think the editor you’re working with can give you the kind of feedback you want, then go editor or feedback partner shopping. Then, don’t consume the feedback all at once! Do it iteratively, slowly, so your work keeps its identity and becomes a better version of itself.
By coincidence, this book arrived in the mail recently:
I’m excited to read it, in part because I think it’s advice I should internalize about my own work, and in part because this is what I want so much from my clients—to enjoy the process of being edited just as much as I enjoy the process of editing.
So friends, tell me—when is editing super stressful? When is it a joy? What can be done in the editing process to make it less painful?
I’m laying low next week to focus on family and the book, but will be the week after with my reflections on AcWriMo! Have a lovely week, and come write with us!
Kelly