The Stubbornness Scale

Yesterday's post was on why you need an editor. Which brings up, I think, potential posts about where you are as a writer and a person.

If we imagine that most human traits are on a scale of 1 to 10, then I think most of us can say where we are--overall, or maybe on a given day--on the happiness scale. I'm an 8, someone might say. There are all sorts of scales. I myself, on the extrovert scale, consider myself a 7. But I also think of myself as a 7 or 8 on the introvert scale, so what the hell that means, I don't know. I consider myself an 9 on the "openness" scale--I feel like I am pretty authentic and open all the time. I would normally consider myself a 9 on the happiness scale, but lately, that's been like a 7, and I am not sure why--or I am but it's too complicated to go into on a blog. Anyway, you get the idea.

So it is with the stubbornness scale. I used to think I was a 10. But as I (ahem!) got older, the scale kept moving down, down, down. Until now, it's to the left of midway. I just realized everything in life didn't have to be a battle with me digging my heels in and "winning." Sometimes, the spiritually mature thing to do is walk away.

Yesterday, a couple of the posts revolved around separating the "us" from the "writing." I think some of it has to do with that stubbornness factor, this innate sense for some of us that being "right" and having the last word are paramount. If you've ever seen a blog war about something political or something emotionally inflamed, then you know what I am talking about.

I sincerely believe when you get criticism, part of your job as writer is to shut up. To let go of the stubbornness and just listen, absorb, take what works for you--not endlessly defend your work. If the editor (and I am talking about a GOOD editor, a TRUSTED beta reader, a normally excellent CP) didn't get what you wanted to convey, then it's simply not there for them. And here's the painful part--may not be there at all. It may still be stuck in your head, but not on paper.

I realized this lesson, I think, when I actually got published. In an array of nice reviews, I had one for Spanish Disco that was just odd. Really odd. And I felt like writing to this woman on Amazon and saying, "Did you MISS this line?" where it was explained. And THEN it hit me, what my editor had been saying--I cannot go on a 50-state tour "explaining" things that aren't coming across through the writing alone. I'm not my work's lawyer. I'm my work's creator. If what I created doesn't convey it . . . it simply doesn't.

Now, there are were, roughly, 50,000 people who read Spanish Disco in 6 or 7 countries. Did EVERYONE have the same read? "Get" the same message? Of course not.

But in the end, in the editing process, it starts with one good editor or beta reader. And at that moment, you have a choice. Shut the hell up . . . or have to be right.

I think the creatively mature choice is to absorb. You may be wounded for a minute, but stubbornness, at that point, does you no good.

On the flip side, what if you have 12 people telling you 12 different things? Don't you at least need to be able to have a true north? To "know" in your gut what's right? Sure. But I would also suggest that you choose your readers carefully, and that old adage Know Thyself. You see, I always knew I was the "have to be right" gal. And THAT is a character flaw. It took a healthy dose of Buddhist teaching, philosophical reading, and some life pain to not be that person anymore. And my writing is the better for it.

Thoughts?