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Re: About Competing


  • From: P3D Gregory J. Wageman <gjw@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • Subject: Re: About Competing
  • Date: Wed, 18 Sep 1996 18:52:42 -0700

Erlys Jedlicka writes:

>However, when you want feedback and are willing to learn from that 
>feedback, you may choose to join a group of like minded people. It is 
>then that you open yourself to accepting their feedback, however harsh or 
>complimentary that may be. You grow. You learn to judge, and you learn to 
>be judged.

I have yet to participate in any competitions, so I can't directly
comment on how useful or instructive they are to me.

But one of the early lessons I learned as an aspiring songwriter was
that when you offer your work to your peers for critique, you have
to learn several things:

1) People are critiquing your work, not you, so don't get defensive
about it; it is not a reflection on your value as a person.

2) Take well-meant constructive criticism in the spirit in which
it is intended; you are under no obligation to *act* on any suggestions,
but be gracious and thank them for taking the time to comment; take
what you agree with and leave what you don't.

3) Some people simply will not like your work, period.  This is often
the hardest lesson to learn, because you *want* everybody to like it.
That doesn't mean your work is bad, it just means it didn't work for
*them*.  One opinion doesn't matter very much; it's the consensus you
should pay attention to.  If the majority of people you show your work
to dislike it, or suggest the same improvement, you've likely got a
real problem that you need to fix, unless you don't intend to share
it with an audience (in which case, why are you asking for criticism
in the first place...).

The world is full of examples of now-famous novels, songs, screenplays,
etc. that were rejected time after time by the "experts", only to be
eventually published, recorded or filmed to become popular and/or
critical successes.  If the creators stopped trying after one rejection,
the world would be much the worse off for not having these works.

(There are lessons in the above for the judges, too.)

        -Greg


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