Update: Softening came back from beta read and I took the feedback a lot better than I though I would. My feeling was of gratitude rather than horror. This post is still relevant though, and a useful personal reminder. Positivity and robustness are so important, as is the ownership, and regular wearing of, big boy pants.

Softening has gone out for its first beta read. I’ve polished the first three chapters and I’ve sent them out into the world. It’s a big moment. It’s changed from a personal project full of personal stories, squirrelled away on a personal computer, to being a real thing, read by real people, with real lives – who alarmingly may give real feedback. Not the feedback that I secretly want – that it’s amazing – but real feedback; the good, the bad and the ugly. And that might be a problem.

Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria

I’m very rejection sensitive. That’s not my opinion – that’s the opinion of my psychiatrist. He calls it Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD). I know this because I got him to print out his notes about me and it was detailed there, in very plain hard to take medical language, along with a lot of other plain, hard to take, information. It’s a feature ADHD. I’m truly awful at taking feedback. I immediately feel tense, defensive and under attack, and that’s the best outcome. The more extreme reactions are disassociation, a feeling of unreality, and a complete inability to act – I go to bed and can’t do anything. RSD was the symptom of ADHD that triggered the medical intervention. It’s the symptom that I find most crippling. It freezes me in place. I get stuck and it’s hard to see a way out.

So the beta read feedback might be a problem. I knew this would be the case when I started writing, but I never thought I’d get this far, so it was a non-issue. But I have got this far, and it’s become a non-non-issue. It’s something I’ll have to face if I’m going to continue and improve. I need the feedback and I need to be able to take it. I need strategies and mental reframing. I need to take the long view. I need to hear the feedback, really properly hear it. I need some mottos and mantras.

Mottos and Mantras

Mottos and mantras useful for any sensitive soul, not just the fraction of the population whose psychiatrist has told them that they are properly terrible at taking feedback.

I’m new. It’s new. I’m a new writer and I need to improve. I’ve reached the limit of what I can see myself in my own writing and I need outside assistance.
It’s personal. It can’t not be, and that’s OK. I believe decent writing has the author in it, somewhere, somehow. The author is out there and exposed. I’ll be out there and exposed.
It’s not personal. The people giving feedback don’t hate you. They actually probably quite like you, and are taking the time to help. They aren’t attacking you. They are critiquing your work and that is really useful.
It can all change. It’s the edit. Nothing is set in stone so if it isn’t working then it can be made to work.
It doesn’t have to change. I don’t have to agree with every piece of feedback. Everyone has an opinion. Not everyone likes everything. Not everyone will like Softening, and that too is OK. I can disagree and not make any change at all.
Feedback is a gift. My wife is an (incredibly dedicated) teacher and this is a favourite saying. It’s true.
It doesn’t matter. The earth won’t crash into the sun if a get some slightly less than glowing feedback. The big gender neutral panties will have to be worn and their power will shield me from any and all emotional turmoil – I hope.
I’m grateful. Thank you to all the beta readers past and hopefully future. Reading someone’s unpublished work, which could be appalling drivel, is a sacrifice of the reader’s free time. It’s a big thing.

The Future

If I keep writing and one day get published, in whatever way I can, then there will be more feedback, and some of it will be blunt, and some of it won’t be well-meaning. There will be reviews, there will be comments, there will be stuff I don’t like in the cesspool of social media (I’m not a big social media fan – sorry all). The beta read is the training ground. It’s the stabilisers on my bicycle wheels. It’s the person holding my hand while I learn to ice skate. It’s the dual control in my driving instructor’s car. It’s all good.

And Thank You

And once again thank you to my current beta readers. I won’t name them at the moment, but they are:

My wife.
My thirteen year old daughter. I weirdly trust her with this.
A nice lady at Queensland Writers Centre who will read the first chapter.
My boss (the QWC lady thought it was mad to have my boss beta read – I reckon it will be fine. He’s a good guy and a vegan. How cruel could a vegan possibly be?).
My boss’s wife. A total bookworm and another female lady, which is super important as I really want a good check on the female lead.

And the reserve list for the full beta.

A colleague in Melbourne. A lovely woman who will be able to help with the more diverse characters.
A friend in the UK who is artsy and lives in a small northern town, just like Perry’s mum.

So thank you all. You are superstars and superheroes and super great. I’m so lucky to know you all. Thank you.

Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash