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Critique Grief
An adage I have learned as an embroiderer is “as you sew, so shall you rip”. For every stitch that makes it to the final product, two more stitches have been removed. Or so/sew it seems/seams.
With writing comes editing and to get good editing, you have other people whom you have deliberately BEGGED to kill your baby. It hurts. It hurts bad.
Mindy Klasky captured this in “Five Stages of Grief (Critique Edition)” for Magical Words back in 2013. Read it, know it. And for the love of goodness, realize when you hit stage 3 what is happening and do not burn your work.
(Yes real people do destroy their work. I have seen it happen with friends, amazing, talented friends – poets, authors, writers, calligraphers, artists. Realize it is a STAGE. If you need to burn it, print out a second copy and take that into the backyard and rip it into little, little pieces and light each on fire. Then come back and move to stage four. Please!)
Again the link is here: http://www.magicalwords.net/mindy-klasky/five-stages-of-grief-critique-edition/