Critique and Ego

Posted on December 30, 2003 in Writing Groups

The worst critics I know in my writing groups deliver critique verbatim from notes they have inscribed ahead of time. They deliver speeches, often with rehearsed gestures and flourishes. The problem I have is that such critiques aren’t interactions but performances. It’s as if the whole show is about them, not the work or the person who wrote it.

When they get started, I tune out. I write descriptions of people in the cafe or record the whimpers that come through my shaking wrist to my pen.