A Piece Of My Heart

On Reviewing

So, I got back to reviewing last night! I feel like I haven't reviewed since I was a newbie, and for the longest time I couldn't understand why. I love reading and I have thoughts about the things I read, so you'd think it would be easy to put those thoughts down on "paper," right? I think I finally overcame my stumbling block last night, and I'm going to briefly explain it here for anyone else who has a problem with review motivation.

I'm a perfectionist. Everyone who knows me knows that I don't like to leave things half done and would prefer if they were spotless. I also have a few OCD tendencies, which meant that before I took my hiatus from WDC when faced with a piece of writing to review, I became overwhelmed by every minute detail. I thought, What was the point of reviewing something if I don't express every single thought I have about the piece and point out every single grammatical error or issue with punctuation? Why leave a review at all if it would only help the writer be a little better, but not 100% better? And so, I didn't write a review at all, preferring to leave all those thoughts unsaid. At that time, giving 0% was better than not giving 100%.

And then I left on hiatus. Something happened while I was away that I can't exactly put into words. I was in college, which may have helped me put my desires for perfection into perspective. I was an all or nothing kind of person, but I came to realize that it is sometimes not physically, mentally, or emotionally possible to give 100% all the time in everything. Perhaps I simply grew up. I don't know. Point is, I realized that giving feedback is important no matter how thorough it was.

I don't think I perceived this change until I started writing reviews again. I stripped away my meticulously crafted review template and stuck to something simple and honest. I wrote how the piece made me feel and any small suggestions I could make to assist the writer, but I didn't dwell on writing "the perfect review." I could spend hours reading and re-reading a piece, picking out every minute error and making endless comments on structure etc, or, I could enjoy the act of reading and give feedback from my heart that wasn't cluttered by my own brain being too strict on myself.

And then, something amazing happened. Reviewing was easy! (and fun! )

I stayed up until 2:30am last night reading and reviewing without perceiving the passage of time. I felt good about my reviews and felt good to be jumping in to that part of the community again. Reviewing is such an integral part of WDC, but I believe we sometimes put too much emphasis and pressure on creating "the perfect review." Personally, I'm going to focus on making reviewing enjoyable for myself again, and in so doing, make my reviews enjoyable to receive as well.



PS: Thank you "Anniversary Reviews"   by NaNoNette for being the catalyst for me to try reviewing again.