There are no end of people who give you feedback and advice. Asked and unasked. Client surveys and friends and readers and mastermind buddies and experts and peers. Well-meaning busybodies and professional advice givers like me.

Sometimes the words they tell you will strike immediately into your soul and light up an understanding. Oh, you say. I get it now. Instant epiphany, no need for explanation or reasoning or anything other than the delightful soul vertigo of new possibility.

And sometimes they share words with you that do not create immediate understanding. That feel wrong or incomplete or infuriating or devastating or all of the above.

What to do? First, remember…

There is a difference between criticism, constructive criticism, and feedback.

A metaphor!

If you were shooting a bow, feedback would say, “Your arrow missed the target by ten centimetres.”

Constructive criticism would say, “You need to release the string more smoothly.”

Criticism would say, “You’re a crap archer.”

The third one is designed to wound. The first and second are designed to help you.

Step back from the moment and figure out which one you have.

And then…

Criticism should be flat out ignored, denied, fingers in the ears la-la-la I am not listening rejected. Squished mercilessly every time it comes back into your mind. Criticism is devil-grass on the smooth lawn of your mind.

Weed ruthlessly.

What do you do with advice and feedback that does not serve you?

Firstly, hold the words in your hand like a sunflower seed.

Turn them over. Smell them. Think about where they came from. Does the person know you well? Do they see more clearly than you do? Are these words about you, or the person who shared them? Do they serve you?

If the seeds prick your fingers, hold them more gently. Some gifts are poisoned. Some gifts do not suit their recipients.

Then go find a patch of black moist earth. Dig a hole with your index finger and drop the seeds in. Push the earth over the top. Smooth it. Water it.

And then leave it the fuck alone.

In the fullness of time, these seeds might germinate and sprout understanding. Or they might remain buried and useless under the ground, never to enlighten you.

Let them.

photo credit: árticotropical

You’re standing in the savanna, staring at your mountain on the horizon.

Under your bare feet the earth is red and warm, clay-sand with ants busily trundling down ant cul-de-sacs and ant super-highways.

Your mountain is snow-capped. Your mountain is shining in the dawn. Your mountain is where it’s at, playa.

There are two places for you to look, darlingheart.

Look at the mountain. Often. Line up that compass and get out your plumb-line and your sextant and your orrery. Keep your eye on the prize.

And look at your feet. Watch them moving. Look for black mambas lying across your path and useful plants and shiny rocks for keepsies.

Mountain. Feet. Mountain. Feet.

Do not, darling of my heart, waste any of your time scanning the savanna for frumious bandersnatches and lions and snarks and grumkins. Do not try and map the territory five miles hence. Do not concern yourself with chasms and cobras and conquistadors not in front of your feet.

(Most of those things aren’t even in the savanna, you know.)

You have no idea what the exact path between here and the mountain will be.

You may have to detour south to escape a furious glacier. You may stray north in search of King Solomon’s Mines. You might get a lift from the Archduke of Eagles. Any time spent planning the path beyond your ability to walk it is quite possibly wasted time. Any time spent worrying about obstacles on that path is almost certainly wasted worry.

When there is a pit-trap in front of your feet, then that is the time to think about it. Until that time, there are no such things in the galaxy.

There’s only you, and your feet, and the mountain.

photo credit:

A long while ago, I made a public resolution: I would write less often but more betterer. (Essentially.)

For where I was in the spiral, that worked for a long time – I was clear enough on what I wanted to say that I could write glorious grandiose story-licious articles every week without strain.

But nowadays… not so much. The business has redefined itself again, and suddenly I have more questions than I have answers. So I’m not able so much to write the Kipling-esque How The Leopard Got His Spots kind of stories that I was writing six months ago. Suddenly I’m Carlos Castenada, but without the peyote. (Although definitely with the surrealism.)

So I’m going back.

Back to the rhythm and patterns that served me best last time I was in this place.

I’m going to write more often, and require less of myself in style and depth. I’m not going to make everything be poetry if it turns up and says, “Yo. I’m prose. Do you want this around the back?”

Because right now the choice is not presenting itself between write great articles or write okay articles. The choice is between write okay articles or do not write at all.

Also, as you can tell from the first person all over the place, I’m probably going to turn up as the main character more often. I often write these articles to clarify my own thoughts: sometimes that involves abstractions (writing about penguins) and sometimes it is extremely literal. I prefer the abstracted stories, but right now they don’t want to get written. So fuck it, I’m gonna write the words that show up and see what happens.

I will likely cull this work on a monthly basis – generally after I’ve written the story that better expresses what I’m saying. (Long-term readers with good memories may have noticed this happening.) The literal version isn’t very good – I’m certainly not happy with this as I’m writing it because it is pedestrian and puffy. But it will do until the story about hedgehogs that expresses my ideas better arrives.

It’s idea Lego, I think.

You have to build a lot of crappy Lego log cabins before you’re ready to build Minas Tirith.

The trick, of course, is that here the log cabins are created publically. Which is why I’m getting extremely meta-textual about my creative process – it’s like the crappy log cabin with a sign next to it that says “First attempt in new media. I am actually good at other stuff, you know.”

(Except less defensive. I hope.)

Many of you identify me as “a writer”. I never use that label for myself. I mean, I write, but it never feels like part of my identity to do so.

And since I don’t think of myself as a writer, I do not know if this reversion to an earlier (and less awesome) style is a problem or an inevitability. I can’t say I much like it – these articles are much harder to write than the ones that spring from my head fully formed like Athena, and they aren’t as good. (For good, read: enjoyable, memorable, likely to attract comments, likely to be mentioned in client calls a year later.)

But it is what it is. (Insert zen koan sound effects here.)

I’ve decided to get less judgmental about the quality and focus more on squeezing every drop out of the work as it shows up. If brilliant-hedgehog-stories turn up, I’ll write them. If ho-hum-workaday-tales are there, I’ll write those instead.

I don’t seem able to produce brilliant on command, more’s the pity.

So this is what you get until that damn hedgehog shows up.

I hope it helps.

Rock on,
Catherine

P.S. There are still two seats left in The Pilot Light course starting soon. Stop dilly-dalling and re-re-reading the sales page (oh yes, I know that quite a few of you are doing that). I’m open to creative payment plans if the only thing getting in your way is money. So if you want in, register your interest today.

photo credit: marfis75