Kill your babies
A great writing lecturer once told me that, in order to write your best work and effectively edit and take criticism, you have to be fully prepared to kill your babies.
What he meant (rather than brutal child murder), is that your favourite line in a poem, or paragraph in a story, or chapter in a novel , probably needs to be taken out. A horrifying thought for anyone new to writing or who is only just becoming accustomed to others’ feedback, I know, but a necessary one none the less.
Be prepared to see your writing from someone else’s point of view. You may think that this particular image is poignant, beautiful, lyrical and meaningful, when in actual fact it is just pretentious, pompous drivel.
The bottom line is to get over yourself, and be aware that if you want to write for other people, you have to listen to other people and admit the fact that you don’t always know best.
