Hey Mr. Editor can you please lower your voice? Can you help without being such an A*s about it?

Dear Writer,

Never be in a hurry to get other people’s opinion about your work, select carefully and there is a good reason for this advice. Sometimes writers get a lot of negative feedback and this kills their speed, we dump our ideas and run for cover. This is how Negative criticism works, it pulls down your art so fast that you find it hard to stand up again.

Negative Criticism
Is commonly mistaken for the art of editing, it should be clearly separated. What makes up negative criticism?
1. Denigrating comments on the author’s efforts. “You are not yet a good writer but I think there is hope”
2. It is never an intellectual advice.
3.It is most times sentimental and emotional
4. It never achieves a balanced view of the work.

The above list is NOT Editing but YELLING!

Writers should be aware of the effect of this wrong approach to editing, it could be a peer evaluation or even a self evaluation; as long as it has the attributes above, please avoid it.

Editing has really beautiful perks;

– It refines your writing; you should not stop at your first draft, review it over and over.
– It challenges you to gain a more balanced perspective of your work.
– It reduces the grammatical errors, obviously this should be important to you as a writer or else why are you even trying?! Lol…
– Editing makes you more confident about your thoughts, because you are certain you said what you meant.

There have been days I go back through my posts and I wonder what I was thinking when I wrote that piece, sometimes I even feel like a dummy for not seeing that error.

So do not YELL as an Editor, that’s a no-brainer. Yelling only scares the creativity away; most writers are shy, insecure people in a lot of cases who find it easier to maul over issues with a pen and paper. I dare to say you would not find too many Sanguine or Melancholic writers! Why?

I Deviate a bit
Sanguines are quite erratic and unstable, they get easily excited and can be broken easily too. This makes it hard for them to take the burden to write and rewrite over and over again. Melancholics are perfectionists by nature and this attribute makes them leave a lot of work half done or totally abandoned.

So what should you avoid while editing:
1. Do not be over excited about your ideas that you publish them too soon.
2. Do not put so much negative pressure on yourself that you consistently experience the writer’s block.
3. Do not be in a hurry to give your work to editors who have attitudes that may push them to do 1&2 above.
4. Finally, get through your first draft before you think of editing. Just pour it out first!

We hope you are improving on your writing.