I often contribute to the team blog of the company where I work. It is fulfilling, where else can you blog at work :-)
In the past two days however, the team blog … specifically my posts have come in the spotlight. By a critic … the comments are coming from a different perspective, maybe by someone who has engaged with the philosophy and found it either too abstract or too disillusioned.
The outcome being that there is criticism about the ideology and some more criticism about the author. Personally speaking none of my blogs have ever attracted much traffic, so I never had to face much applause or critique other than my immediate circle of friends. Critique from an unidentified source, adds that element of mystery and even a little bit of surprise (Ohh!! Someone does read my stuff!).
What I have not picked up over the 4-5 years of passively active blogging I have done is … how to handle criticism. A post I recently found is pretty good and maybe it will help other bloggers as well, so sharing it here.
— Appended —
Pallavi commented that the critique might just be a different perspective or a different opinion. The final choice of taking that is always upto us. I looked back at the comments I was getting, and have decided to take the new perspective and try something new on the team blog. Will update once I get the results.
criticism for me is like a perspective. You have yours and I have mine. Someone who cared to give their ‘opinion’ on what I wrote or my thoughts/ideas, so while I appreciate that, I will defi question its genuineness before taking it seriously.
Most of the time a critics opinion is way to over-rated. The point is will i read/watch/try something as per a critics opinion. 95% of the time no, unless I know the ‘critic’ personally and understand his/her reasons for recommending/panning a product.
couldn’t open the link with your post
PS: btw my observation and interaction with some of the well known food/film/book critics in India tells me they really dread someone elses opinion on their work and have such a snob value attached to what they do….
Wow!! Thanks Pallavi for sharing that insight. Shall check the link as well.
I write stories. In a recently concluded story I had to face a lot of flak from the readers. Apart from noting down the points made by the readers, I had two other take aways from it. One, the readers had put up with me for the 5 parts of the story that ran almost a month. And two, they were interested and they cared to read what I write. That is why they flayed me, so that I could do better next time. :-)
Criticism is like taking a hot water bath in the open. It burns you and makes you very uncomfortable. But at the end of the exercise, you come out clean and revised. It helps!
Hey Mayur,
That was pretty awesome metaphor!! Thanks for sharing with us :)