My experience reviewing

Where do I start?

I have been a member of this site for ten years and contributed very little.

Up until last week I had only four pieces of writing in my portfolio.

My first piece was bad, very bad and the reviews I got at the time for it hurt, a lot. I stopped writing, I questioned my ability to write. Who am I to write? Can I even write?

Then the self criticism came in. The self doubt and all the associated crap that those thoughts generate. So although I was a member I infrequently visited. Then I dusted the old writing off reworked it and got some better reviews. Still they did not fill me with confidence, and so it went on and of for years me popping onto the site to read e mails have a look about then go away again.

Always with the intent to do better ........soon.


I have the same problem as most of you though, I cannot keep away, this is something I need to do, I want to do, I am going to do.

So the more I thought about things the more worked up I became, so I went back and re-read those reviews and yes they still hurt and yes I was annoyed but then I read them properly. None of them were negative, none of them were nasty. Some of them had hurt my ego plain and simple. It was because of this bruised ego that I had stopped writing and ignored the site. How silly did I feel when I finally realised this?

The reviews where they critiqued the length of my sentences were accurate they were too long, the grammar issues were right I do not know a lot about grammar.
All of the reviews that I thought of as negative did nothing more than tell me where I had an opportunity for improvement. Because I was such a baby with such a sensitive ego at nearly fifty years old it is embarrassing to admit that. I had missed out doing so much.

Fair enough I had done a couple of creative writing courses in the meantime. (how can you stop writing? it is in the blood.) I uploaded some of the exercises I had done during those and received better reviews.

So a few weeks ago I decided to get more involved with the site. I wanted one of those nice shiny yellow briefcase thingies. I started reading other peoples work, and then I started to review a couple of pieces of work. Then I decided to post on 'my weekly goals' and the first week I missed my targets totally, but last week and this not only did I meet my targets I exceeded them.

What's that got to do with reviewing I hear you say.

Well this, we have already established I have the same knowledge of grammar as a snail. I cannot comment on sentence structure as I cannot structure my own correctly. I will though.
I miss when the story changes form past to present tense. I miss the story going from 3rd person to 1st person and back again.

So I do not even attempt to give a technical review. I review from the part of me that read the library dry of Dr Who books when I was a small boy. The part that drained every word of Enid Blyton off the page. The part that at around fifteen was with Dusty Fog and the Ysabel KId in J T Edsons westerns, and the part of me that then found Dwarves, Elves and Orcs.

This is the part of me that I review with.

I tell people how their writing makes me feel. How the dialogue flows. does it get me reading faster to keep up with the story? Has it made me well up with emotion?
So I will go on reviewing from the heart so to speak. If I bring one smile to someone by telling them I enjoyed reading their writing then I am happy.

Of course I am still worried about receiving a scorning e mail about my ability to review, but I have come to realise this; We should take those comments that we do not like and look at them and learn from them, use them for what they were meant for not ridicule or abuse but genuine critique to help. The reviews that make us smile we read, file away and feel a job well done.

We are never going to impress everyone, we all like different things but we can all keep on writing.

This is why I review to bring hope and the knowledge that at least one person has read the work on offer.