Yes, you read that right. And no, I'm not a masochist. About a week ago, I received the most biting negative criticism that I have ever received about a piece of my writing. And I mean negative. Caustic. It burned. I'll tell you exactly how. This is how I felt about it (more or less in chronological order): 1. Stunned: I'd never received such a crushing critique before. 2. In denial: The person who critiqued the work obviously doesn't know anything. This isn't happening to me. This person doesn't understand what I'm trying to say or the aim of this piece of writing. 3. Crushed: I suck. I suck. I suck. I can't believe I ever thought I can become a good writer. I suck. I should just go find some office job and forget about ever becoming a writer. Did I mention that I suck? Well, I do. I suck. 4. Acceptance of the criticism: OK, this person may have a point. Yes, I agree that this needs some revision. OK, it needs a major rewrite and has lots of problems. 5. Worried and paranoid: If I sucked so bad at this piece, therefore, I suck at everything related to writing. Anyone else who ever said anything good about any of my other writings must have been too polite or embarrassed to say anything. Anyone else who didn't tear my writing to shreds before must have been too nice to say anything. They must have pitied me. I still suck. 6. Shaky acceptance of myself: This was the most difficult stage to arrive at. OK, so not everything I write is wonderful, or even good. Sometimes I write terribly, and sometimes I write very well. There's no way that anyone writes well every single time. This shredding of my writing will make me more aware of the mistakes I make. It will make me improve my writing. There is hope. Maybe I don't suck. At least not completely. This was a rundown of my emotional and mental states as I dealt with the criticism. At the end, I did buckle up and fix that piece. But I'm no hero. I still feel that my previously dulled sense of self-doubt has been sharpened and stings. And now I'm trying to convince myself that a healthy dose of self-doubt is necessary for all writers. How else would they improve? But the key word here is: healthy. In the next post in this two-part series, I'll talk some more about negative critiques, and how writers can evaluate and deal with it. But now, I'm interested in knowing about your experiences with negative criticism. How did it make you feel? What did you do?