In a funk over feedback
Being a student of memoir is hard.
I don’t know how to take my own advice.
I tell the kids at school, “Feedback is a learning opportunity, not a weakness”.
“Learning isn’t linear; feeback is part of the journey to mastery.”
“We have to fail to figure out how to do…” [XYZ]
Yet I’ve sulked for the last couple of days because the feedback I got for the latest instalment of my memoir wasn’t as glowing as the previous time.
Context
My mentor, Lee, is incredible. I love her and her process—she suits me like peas do carrots.
I did a couple of her courses, the first online, the second in person (she’s a multi-published writer with a PhD in creative writing…she knows her shit).
By the end of the memoir writing workshop in January 2023, I knew she was the person to guide me to the end of my book. I shyly asked her via email, knowing how busy she was. She had time for me in 9 months. She was totally worth the wait.
Since then, we’ve workshopped, redrafted, and edited thousands of words. She’s taught me how to write bravely, with emotional honesty, and to keep going. She also taught me that it’s standard practice to go through a whole heap (like eight drafts), overwrite, and slash hundreds of sentences.
Under her gentle stewardship, I’ve delved into the darkest places of my life, recovered memories from a brain that had deleted files for protection, and found a badass voice.
The feedback loop began
I was crapping my pants the first time I sent her my work—the first 10,000 words.
Her feedback was glowing.
“You’re a natural born writer…I love your voice – it’s versatile, ranging between lyrical and wry, innocent and dark, but always evocative and rhythmic.”
[Insert a vision of me smacking my hand to my mouth so hard that I almost break my front teeth with my silver rings. The shock nearly caused dental reconstruction].
“You’re a highly accomplished writer, and your work is already of a publishable standard. I feel privileged to be working with you.”
At that point, I’d redrafted the first third of the book at least five times. I’d put in hard graft over two years. It had benefitted from focusing, stepping back, and revisiting repeatedly.
Then, we got to later sections. Sections that were a raw draft. Sections where I’d tried to make the story more anonymous. More palatable. Less me.
The voice was inconsistent. The story had too many holes and not enough reflection. There was A LOT of work to do. The feedback was always positive, pointing out all the strengths and giving me direction for the next draft. I was told to “just keep writing”.
I did. I chipped away at it during the school year, then redrafted 60,000 words on long service leave over three months in Mexico.
I wanted to return to Melbourne, a step closer to finishing the beast.
The recent feedback - best and bummed
When I returned from overseas, I had very light teaching duties.
I set about editing with a clear head and time on my hands.
I committed to sending Lee ten thousand of the new material a month until it’s done.
The feedback was the best yet.
“So Suzanne, congratulations! This is your most powerful, well-written installment to date! It is my great joy and pleasure to see you develop as a writer. What a feat! In this installment, you've managed to convey with such fine nuance your own complexity, showing vividly and with plenty of hindsight wisdom how complex you are as a human in your mixture of wilderness, vulnerability, strength and fragility, generosity and hedonism.”
And on it went.
By the time I’d gotten to the end of her line-by-line editing, I felt like I’d arrived as a writer.
I simply needed to keep that standard.
Then life happened. I got busy with work, distracted with romance, and couldn’t see my arse from my elbow or the wood for the trees. Add any other cliche for not being able to judge my own work.
The latest feedback was:
“As always, I greatly enjoyed reading your work. You describe well the push and pull, the slowness and yet also the progression of your healing process. The sex stuff is as always very well written. But there are some passages in this instalment that read as if they were written in a rush – I marked them all in-text. Nothing major to worry about, just something to fix in the next redraft…But otherwise, this was a very compelling read.”
What I read was:
It’s shit, you’re shit, you’ve lost it.
It’s taken me three days to repeatedly tell myself that I’m in the ‘layering’ process of writing. That it takes time. That I haven’t given it my full attention. And that the writing is the healing for me…still. Like my healing journey, it can’t be rushed.
So, I’m onto tweaking the next ten thousand words to send later this month. With the faith that I’m constantly making some sort of progress.
And that one day I will finish writing. Maybe it’ll get published. Maybe this whole process was just for me.
Either way, it sure is an exercise in listening to my own advice…feedback is your friend.
We need it to grow.
(As usual, this post was written in half an hour and sent out as a first draft - it’s good practice at not being precious).
Thank you for being here.
Mwah. 💋
As always beautifully said my friend and a great reminder for us all. Mastery requires feedback 🩷