Thoughts on the criticism of my writing

Preamble:

The first criticism of my writing, at least the criticism that I remember, was in 1950 when I was in grade one in the then small town of Burlington Ontario. Burlington was nestled at the heel of what was then and is still called southern Ontario’s Golden Horseshoe. The town is and was jammed right at the left-hand end of Lake Ontario. I’m sure I received criticism of my scribblings in the three years before that in my early childhood from my family members and playmates, perhaps as early as 1947 when I was three or four years old and colouring or printing my first words on paper.

I have no memories of that incoming criticism, no memories until, as I say, 1950. That was more than 60 years ago: 1950 to 2011. I do have memories of criticism of my behaviour as early as the age of four in 1948 when my father applied a wooden hair-brush to my bare bottom as he was asked to do by my mother for some misdemeanour, a behavioural indiscretion the details of which are now long forgotten.

When one is a student, as I was from 1949 to 1970 in Canada, and in Australia from 1974 to 1988, receiving criticism of what one writes is part of the core of the educational process. Sometimes that criticism is fair and helpful; sometimes it is unkind and destructive. It is not my intention here to provide a detailed outline of those several decades of criticism of my writing. In general, though, the comments on my writing covered the complete range from the best of the best to the worst of the worst.

1.THE TRANSITION TO WRITING ON THE INTERNET

Early in this new, this third, millennium, in 2004 to be precise, I began to receive written criticism of my prose and poetry on the internet. I had received criticism, mostly verbal, of my published writing from 1974 to 2004 during which time I was able to publish some 150 essays in newspapers and magazines, newsletters and in-house publications where I worked in several towns and cities in Australia. Writing had become, by the 1970s, a more central focus to my life, much more central than it had ever been, although it had always been central in one way or another at least, as I say above, since 1950.

Being on the receiving end of criticism in cyberspace has been, in some ways, just a continuation of the first half-century, 1950-2000, of comments by teachers and students, by supervisors and the general public on what I had written. Some readers have been so impressed with my writing that they have asked for more, poured praise and expressed their enthusiasm.

2. INTERNET CRITICISM

2.1 The Bullies:

The internet, though, is full of lumpen bully-boys who prowl the blogosphere. Some of the bully-boys, and girls--for bullying is not confined to the male gender—do all their work at one site and they have literally thousands of posts at that site. If they see someone’s ego getting out of hand, or if they judge some new site participant as not fitting into the site conventions in some way or other, they make it their job to cut them down to size thus intimidating many a potential site writer and poster. So be warned, writers at internet sites need to be conscious of site conventions and, initially anyway, not post items that challenge what you might call the site’s orthodoxy.

Such internet bullies remind me of some of the teachers I have worked with in my 50 years in classrooms. Such teachers saw their role as pushing and pulling all their students into line by the exercise of their authority. On the site boards, as internet sites are often called, where site activists live and have their being, the authority of site administrators and moderators is exercised like a heavy club, an iron fist. They see their task as one of ensuring the maintenance of site rules and routines, conventions and styles. “Newbies,” as new members are often called, must fall in or ship out. This ‘site-orthodoxy’ which prevails is important for a new poster to become familiar with and become familiar fast if he does not want his emotions trashed, stepped on with little knowledge of what some call awareness of emotional intelligence and etiquette of expression.

2.1 The Fundamentalists:

There are a wide range of hysterical secularists, what I have come to call the secular fundamentalists, who proliferate among the immense commentariat that is the internet. They are not unlike many of the so-called Bible-bashers that fill out global society by the millions. There are also the dogmatic Islamists and Christian fundamentalists, among others who want to impose their absolutes on others. They try to inflict, or perhaps promote, their interpretation of the Quran or the Bible on the rest of the Muslim or Christian communities, respectively.

3. CRITICISM AND PRAISE: WHAT WRITERS NEED

My experience on the internet in the last decade, 2001 to 2011, is, just a continuation of those decades of criticism and, of course, praise that I had already received. “Writers,” as the famous American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald said so succinctly over dinner in the film entitled Last Call, “must get used to criticism.” After decades of extensive writing in many places in the public domain, I must agree with this entre deux guerres[1] writer; criticism is part of the air that writers breath and, especially is this true on the internet for writers like myself who have lots of readers. I do not ask for criticism, except at a few writers’ and poets’ sites whose purposes, among others, is to provide constructive, useful, criticism. Nor do I ask for praise. There’s nothing wrong with praise itself and, when it comes, I feel encouraged. But lip-service and flattery are cheap substitutes for praise when no praise is deserved. People who are addicted to praise will take what they can get and lap it up with enthusiasm.

The want of praise can be an entirely different matter. If one falls into the trap of constantly seeking approval, validation, and recognition from other people as the primary way to determine one’s self-value, one loses the ability to generate one’s own self-value. After years of getting plenty of praise from my parents and teachers and then my students, friends and colleagues, I no longer continue to rely on other people to buoy my self-esteem. Since I also received my fair share of criticism in the first 50 years of my writing life, I am aware of my limitations as well as my talents and capacities. I am also aware that personal, sustained and intelligent effort is essential to back-up any already acquired or natural abilities, what one writer calls unmerited grace. The process of skill-acquisition, at least in the area of writing, and at least as I have experienced it in more than half a century, is gradual, a daily exercise, not a constant nor linear but exponential until a saturation point is reached. No one faculty produces results and knowledge, love and will are what you might call the three pre-requisites to produceresults.2

The reliance on external praise can grow to the point that whenever someone praises you, even in the smallest way, you feel a rush of elation, the feeling that “someone out there values my existence.” As the famous psychiatrist Viktor Frankl once said: “Success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue.”3 This applies, a fortiori, to writing. Some writers only want praise but, after living Downunder for more than 40 years, I have come to expect and even enjoy a little criticism. Criticism is part of the air one breaths here in Australia.

Brock he is back, Ron writes but does not interact with us.

Hello again Ron.

My all time number 1 p4p poster.

I read the headings and the odd word, did Ron flash the baha religion thing again?

I read it on a Sunday and my heart stood still.

yeeeaah, your writing looks so fine....

I wish I could make it mine...

I do Ron, Ron, Ron..... I do Ron, Ron

I drop in here occasionally, responding to the invitation automatically generated by site administrators. I post at literally 1000s of websites and, if I interacted with everyone at these sites, that is all I would do all day long, everyday of my life.-Ron
-Ron

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RonPrice

I drop in here occasionally, responding to the invitation automatically generated by site administrators. I post at literally 1000s of websites and, if I interacted with everyone at these sites, that is all I would do all day long, everyday of my life.-Ron
-Ron

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You should not have to interact with the plebians anyway, let them eat cake. Anyone who does not enjoy your writing is clearly Psycho, those ingrates, they should thank you for enlightening them. I thank you and for all members of this forum I thank you. God's Speed, I will await your next lofty pontification with great anxiety.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Master

Brock he is back, Ron writes but does not interact with us.

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Dear Ron,

I fear, alas!, thou art mired in a world of Baha'i bolderdash. do you really think mankind knows what the fuck is going on with "God" or what "God" has "said" or "intended" to say? Are you on any narcotics, Ron, and what, if anything, do you feel (being you are so literate and verbose) that these little essays you post are doing for either yourself or others?

On 2nd thought, never mind. No malice intended, Ron, but what you are writing is pointless, senseless drivel, drool, etc. What makes you think the world cares about what happened to you in every single detail when you were a child in a classroom or in a train station or in a park or on a bench.....? Compounding your annoying behavior is that fact that you are FUCKING TROLLING AND BARRAGING THIS FORUM IN A ONE-SIDED CONVERSATION OR SHALL I SAY A
SELF-ABSORBED MENTAL MASTURBATION OF PSYCHOBABBLE, INTERSPERSED WITH RELIGIOUS BAHA'I BULLSHIT.

No malice intended. :)
@RonPrice

@ron Price

@Master

I'll give you some thoughts on the criticism of your writing:

Ready????

IT SUCKS

brocktonblockbust and walrus have supplied some solid and honest feedback. For that I thank you both. At the age of 70 I have come to appreciate cyberspace honesty even when it is aimed at my jugular. I'll add a little piece in response knowing, as I do, full-well that some readers here at SaddoBoxing.com like what I write and some don't. All writers have this experience.-Ron Price, George Town, Tasmania, Australia
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Part 1:

In November 2002, a dozen years ago now, I began to get some feedback on my website and my poetry. My website is found at: http://www.ronpriceepoch.com/auto.html It had been 18 months since my website, the second edition, went online. But it was not for another 18 months, in April 2004, that feedback on the subject of my poetry began to come in to any significant extent. This feedback confirmed to me that I was indeed writing material that gave some pleasure to some readers. Of course, not everyone liked what I wrote. No attempt is made here to keep a comprehensive picture or outline of all the feedback. The contents here are suggestive only.

In September 2004 I opened a new file and inserted it into the sequence of my Publishing Files, numbering and naming it Publishing Volume 3.2.2. I added to this file correspondence in connection with the About internet site entitled All Experts> Spirituality> Baha’i Faith which I had begun posting at and receiving feedback from back in September 2004. This was a two-way feedback of a different, of a special, kind, all in relation to the Baha’i Faith.

Part 2:

In the winter of 2004 I divided the feedback I had been receiving for two years into several sections. Two years later, by the winter of 2006, the feedback had become extensive, as I say, too extensive to keep a comprehensive record of in my files. In March 2006 I divided my file 3.2.2, (Now found in Poetry>Feedback> INTRO to Feedback Vol. 3.2.2.)into the following sections for some kind of organized form and record: (i) feedback to/from other poets/writers(4.3.0), (ii) feedback from individuals(4.3.1.1), (iii) feedback from significant individuals (4.3.1.2), (iv) feedback from forums/groups/sites(4.3.1.3), (v) feedback to and from All Experts.com(4.3.3), (vi) feedback of a critical/negative nature(4.3.4), and (vii) feedback on my website and my autobiography both entitled Pioneering Over Four Epochs.

Some of the feedback, as readers can see from this outline of sections, was strongly negative. In the month of my 60th birthday, July 2004, the first really negative stuff came in. It went for the jugular, but in cyberspace one is insulated somewhat from the harsh reality of face-to-face criticism. Now after nearly seven years I have kept a sample of this material in section 4.3.4. Most of the feedback was positive and is in 4.3.1. I may analyse this feedback one day but, after having this file for 7 years, I am content just to get its contents into some sort of ordered form.

Part 3:

Finally, it seemed relevant to see this file as a companion piece to Letters Section X Volume 11 since it is a good indication of the type of “work,” type of “job-hunting,” if one can call it that, which has occupied me since I left the word of formal employment, PT, casual and volunteer work. Now that I have been able to devote myself to writing and teaching, editing and research, through this medium of activity a whole new world of activity has opened-up.

(1) See the table of contents of my job-hunting file: Letters Section X Volume 1 which reflects my “work” until this feedback began to come in. I may post an outline of my 50 years of job-hunting: 1955 to 2005 at some future time here at this site.

Ron Price
21/9/'07 to 12/6/'14.

Wales / Tasmania
@Dia bando has the baha faith too

:sheep:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Andre

Wales / Tasmania
@Dia bando has the baha faith too


@Andre
:sheep:

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@Andre

HOW YOU LOVE TO KEEP BUMPING THIS THREAD UP. ;)