Criticism

I don't like criticism and will try very hard to avoid it as much as possible. I never read reviews of my stuff although to be honest I rarely get written up but do on occasion. So, it was with great reluctance that I answered the phone the other day because I could see that it was someone I try to avoid as much as possible. Even my friend, Ted, won't take his calls anymore. Jo Ann who just got her first novel published told me that she wanted to slit her wrists after one of his calls. She ended up throwing away her cell phone and it was not a cheap phone. It was one of those Android phones. She stopped the car on a busy bridge in Portland, got out and threw it into the river and then drove off. One guy yelled "Way to go!" She later told Sprint she lost it.

I will call this guy Forest as I know of no one by that name. He is a very successful writer and is far more successful than anyone I know in my small circle of writers. He is also a very critical man about what we all write about and how we do it. Ted told him in no uncertain terms what he could do with his word processor. The rest of us just stay on the phone and listen to him because he does write letters of recommendation to publishers and agents. In short, if I had them, I would say he has me by the balls.

Forest told me that I write too emotionally. I write about people in a too magical way. Life is so good, he says to me in his typical oily manner. You are always so optimistic and that is not realistic. I can hear his doting wife in the background as she fixes him those huge cups of ice because his desk and phone is near his private refrigerator. She cracks the ice tray and drops the ice in the cup and fills them up with his favorite drink, Pepsi Cola. I know he has kids, but he keeps them somewhere for as young as they are I never hear them. Forest tells me sometimes that she rubs his shoulders because he has to spend so many hours in front of the typewriter. Yes, he types his first draft on a typewriter and he likes to collect them. He must have dozens of typewriters.

He told Jo Ann that she wrote her first novel about her father who was a union organizer in too emotional way and that only women would read it. It is too early to tell if he is right or not. "To Kill A Mockingbird" is such a book, I counter. He tells me that I don't know what I am talking about and I bite my pencil in half. Forest said the only reason that Jo Ann got her book published was that the publisher liked books written about unions right now. Oh, he asked did I know her new phone number? No, I lied. I could not reach her. I understand she lost her phone.

Sometimes, I think we put up with too much because we think we need certain people. I think if I don't talk to Forrest ever so often I won't get the help I need when I do need it. He has helped on occasion. Maybe I am afraid to take a chance on finding a market for my stuff without his help. Ted doesn't need his help. He found his readers and he doesn't need him. I don't have such a loyal following. I asked my son to move out of my house and maybe I need to change my phone number too and make it a clean breast of getting bullies out of my life for Forest is a bully too.

Joseph Campbell said that if you follow your bliss, the Cosmos will help you in your quest. Other people have said the same thing and I have found it to be true. Maybe it is time to trust that adage and move on to be my own person and not lean on people who I dislike but think I have to have in my life because I need them. Maybe it is time to trust in my own vision and in my dreams.

It is also important to question why I put up with Forest's negative talk in the first place. All writers come with baggage from our past. It is important that we don't give our creative power away to good luck charms, beliefs we don't question and the truth of living in the present. I am blaming Forest for something I do to myself. He is a target for my anger when the real target is myself and the disdain I feel for his point of view. I can feel superior to him knowing he has made millions from his books but all he has his a servant wife and no friends. The problem isn't his but mine.

That is the trouble with criticism. It makes one look at things we would rather not look at. I don't think I like me when I think of Forest. Maybe, I need to throw the cell phone off the bridge too. I can't tell him where to put his word processor since he doesn't have one which made him even more angrier at Ted than he would have been. I remember Forest telling me several times how mad he got at Ted for saying he had one. I need to put a proper perspective on things and feel more confident in myself and in my own ability to find my own way home.