Roses and Reviews

This dress is by far one of my favorites from the several I made last year. I just love a floral with a dark background, and the sheer quality of this fabric just gives the layered style a little extra something, makes the dress read a bit more evening I think. Perfect for a fancier summer date night (not that I date, ha!) or even perhaps attending an evening summer wedding. The soft roses on black just seem a bit romantic no?

While my past weekend did not include any romantic dates, I did have rather an engaging meeting all the same. On Friday afternoon I met up with two wonderful women who had read my manuscript to talk about the book and get their thoughts and reactions. As I waited for the appointed time to arrive, I felt more butterflies in my stomach than I had in a very long time. Sharing your art is scary at the best of times, but waiting to receive feedback on my manuscript from what were essentially my ideal beta readers-- and two very intelligent women I really admire in general-- was at moments just flat out terrifying. What if they had hated it? What if they said the structure was all wrong, said it was disjointed and messy, or even offensive or problematic? My head ran through everything they could say, which I suppose is one way for the mind to try to calm itself down, calculate for every eventuality to prepare for the worst.

And they didn't hate it, but they did have a lot of interesting feedback, and also caught all of my remaining typos for me, which was very useful! Some beta readers will give you barely anything, a yea or nay essentially in review, and then others will practically become unpaid editors for you. As I had been the only one to edit the manuscript so far, outside eyes were very welcome. These most lovely beta readers of mine that I met up with on Friday had even printed out the manuscript to read it, and therefore wrote notes in the margins and crossed out typos for me. While many of these notes were small things, many were also confirmations of things I had already been thinking. "You don't need this sentence here." Correct, I don't, and I had almost removed it before. Now I will most certainly cut it. What does this tell me? To really trust my gut with those kinds of things.

Of course critique, even very useful and constructive critique, still hurts. Especially when someone points out weak points you already feel aware of and self conscious about. I was worried about how I would handle it. My writing means more to me than anything else I currently do, so that leaves me feeling rather fragile in the face of criticism, or so I thought. It is so important to remember that the "negative" comments are always going to seem twenty times louder than the positive ones. The negative, or what your brain interprets as negative, comments and reactions are the ones your brain will replay for you over and over, throwing you into a swirling pool of doubt. Yes, hearing where I went wrong or could improve did sting, but I think I managed to be receptive instead of defensive-- which is always my goal. In the end the book will be better the more I listen. Listen yes, but not always concede. Some things are easy fixes, many are notes I agree with and will change, and some notes or questions...I am going to completely ignore.

The funny thing about art is: yes outside feedback is important, and can help you grow and learn new things about your own process and even your world view, but your art is also yours. The things you create belong first to you. You can decide to share them, and then the world will comment and judge, rave or recoil, but create first to please yourself and the rest will matter less. I wrote this book for my own enjoyment, and it's impossible to even quantify how much I have indeed enjoyed writing and editing it this year. Now I get to keep editing it some more, and that is a total gift!

Also, having other people give me feedback now has me asking certain questions of the work myself, even though other people haven't commented on them.

This book of mine takes place in the vague future in a different country, one that I have never even visited. Despite hours and hours of research, of course I still fear missteps. One of the questions I have asked beta readers is "did you notice anything problematic?", because not all of the characters in my book are white (most aren't actually) and as a privileged millennial white girl myself, I know I no doubt have, and will continue to, mess up. It is so important to me to be cognizant of this and try my best to be both diverse and inclusive in my writing, while also avoiding cultural appropriation and misrepresentation as much as I possibly can. Writing speculative fiction means I get to make a lot of stuff up, but analyzing why I wrote the world of my story the way I did, or what implications I am possibly making, even with "good intentions", are important steps in the editing process that I have been diving into ever since my beta readers have said "no, nothing stood out to me as problematic".

Because now that I am reexamining the work again myself, I do see a few things that need fixing in this regard, even I can now see things that could be interpreted as potentially offensive. Use your own outside eye. If this was someone else's work and I was set the task of ripping it apart, what would I find? There is a line, there are many varied lines, between fun fiction and harmful misrepresentation or perpetuating stereotypes. Just getting feedback from others has been enough to generate new and different critique even from within myself, and I am so very thankful to have more work to do.

So as you can see, that meeting has dominated my mind this weekend. I would love to hear your thoughts on these sort of topics as well. How has feedback shaped your own work and process? Or do you make art only for yourself never intending it to be shared? I think that might be easier! Happy Monday everybody ;)

Dress & Earrings, Bracelets: Made by me
Shoes: DSW (Madden Girl)
Fishnets: Amazon
Clutch & Necklace: Vintage
Hair Flower Clip: Alternate Normality