Embrace the Beta – Let go of the need for Validation

When I first began to contemplate that I might be a writer, I was knee-deep in social media feeds for writers, Reddit and Twitter mostly.  Reddit because I always learn something from Reddit posts and the population of Reddit seems to be international; I end up following ribbons of posts with more information than I’ll get in the United States.  I’ve learned a lot that way. 

I follow Twitter writers for an entirely different, pre-Elon Musk is a jerk scene:  I needed help developing the discipline to write every day.  “Am writing” and “5am writing” tweets helped propel me through the tough transition of writing crap every day.

Only when you write crap every day, do you have material to edit into gold.

Then I stumbled across a beta reader post.  Initially, I had no idea what a beta reader was and how the process worked, but I was intrigued.  At that point, I had asked everyone I knew to read my work.  Very few friends, family members, and colleagues read my work.  Fewer gave feedback.  For a long time, while I slogged through learning world building, the feedback from my writer’s group was repetitive, supportive, but negative.  “I don’t get it,” they said, “It’s not anchored.”  “It’s not a full story.”

Enter my experience in Gotham Writers AND my participation in beta reader posts.  I read other people’s work and quickly realized, I’m a pretty good writer.  I devoured online articles on how to give feedback.  I took Science Fiction Writing I at Gotham and the class forced me to post my work.  The first read-through of feedback, attendees were not able to respond.  This was helpful.  When I heard the same message from multiple sources, I began to understand how my writing had to change.

And I realized something valuable to my sense of self. 

I was entering into these beta reader experiences hoping for validation.  Feedback to fill in the crevices of my low self-esteem that nipped at me with every detailed evaluation of my writing.  Every time I uploaded, I hoped for a rave, for recognition of my hard work, for a compliment to my monster building, a validation of my world building.

This happened for a long, long time. I argued with feedback, until I let go of my stubborn attitude around my writing.  I let go of the hope that readers would “get” it.  I let go of trying to argue or make my point verbally, realizing that my point was made either through my words, or it wasn’t.

I started to edit and edit hard, asking myself: am I really expressing on paper all that I see in my head?  Am I pausing to anchor the story with concrete descriptions?

Praise did come but I’m so glad it didn’t come early on. 

Bottom line is this:  I’m not a writer for you to like my work or for you to like me more and especially not for you to tell me any of this flattery.  I’m a writer because I simply can not not be a writer and writing is the only validation I need.  So if you can, dive in.  Offer to beta read in the writing groups.  Then send your work out for the same.  Breathe into that very human need for validation; see if you can loosen your grip on it just a little.

You will feel better.  I certainly do.

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