Are You Teachable?

I believe this is called a rant. Please beware!!!!!

Have you ever been in a critique group where a person wouldn’t take the advice from someone because they weren’t as good of a writer as they thought they should be?

When I first started out, this happened to me with a group of writers (not my current critique group-they rock). I didn’t know the grammar rules as well as I should. I didn’t know plot structure or what an antagonist was (*gasp* I know, scary).

But I did know something…I knew how to read. I knew what sounded right and what sounded…tedious. I could pick out the sentence structures that sounded wrong. I also knew how to put down a bad book. Yet, my advice was counted as nil.

Over the years, I have taken many classes to learn the semantics and syntactical use of language (I actually know what those mean :) Well, kind of. I may have used those wrong in that sentence, but you get the gist. Right? *fingers crossed*). I’ve learned language development, usage of grammar and punctuation (yes, I still use my spell-check. Much to the dismay of my critique group-they helped me critique two research papers last night. I made lots of mistakes. LOVE YOU GUYS! I owe them big…I owe them big), I’ve taken creative and non-creative writing…the list goes on, but that is not my point. This is my point…

Even though I have and am taking all these classes that hopefully will help me…I still don’t know everything there is about writing. I may never know everything. I may be getting A’s in my English classes in college, but that doesn’t make me–wise.

As writers, we work our baloganas off to create a work of art. We learn the craft of writing, we learn how to become better. To a point. Sometimes we work so hard, we think we know it all.

When someone less learned than we points something out to us, do we ignore them, just because we know better? *mwa ha ha ha – throwing hair back behind head like some evil villain of villainy* Or do we stop and think, “Hum…maybe they have a point.”

I do understand that some things critiqued can be laid aside. And that’s okay. But if we are letting our smugness get in the way, well, that’s a different matter.

Our readers are not writers, yet… they know a good book. They will be able to pick out plot holes, find grammar errors, and yes…even be bored with our writing. We shouldn’t blow them off, because “they just don’t understand writing.”

We need to be teachable. We need to learn from the advice from others.

It’s the only way we can get better and reach our dreams.