How to move from critic to encourager by Joy Lenton

I gazed at the screen in disbelief. A blog post had attracted a critical response based purely on my writing technique. 

Though I'm my own worst critic, and tend to edit my work to death, still someone had picked up on a mistake my tired mind had missed.

Don't you just hate it when that happens? And I thought, (a bit peevishly): why say anything if you can't say anything nice?  

How should we approach a book, a blog? Do we read it openly, or primarily as a critic?

As we enter a writer's world, we engage with her mind's rich creativity. A well written story will always captivate us—as long as we can set aside our prejudices.

How about non-fiction writers? I believe each genre involves storytelling, reaching deep into our subconscious. Poetry, especially, encapsulates emotions and experiences, real and imagined. 

What matters most is the truth we share—the veracity of our words and their resonance within, the roots of reality they are planted in. In writing, and in life, let's celebrate our differences and appreciate most what unites us.

Is it possible to take off the critic's hat? Can we savour a story without picking holes in the way it's written? I'm by no means suggesting sloppy writing is a good thing. We should all strive for excellence in our work, yet always try to be kind, generous toward ourselves, as well as others.

Though our inner critic can cripple us from seeing writing (or life) in a positive light, what if we tried to see ourselves through God's lens of loving understanding, rather than via a lens of laceration for all the things we think we've got wrong?

Self-criticism comes as easily to me as breathing, because my fractured upbringing led to a fragile self-esteem.

Now, I'm freer to create, love having a means to write and an audience to share my words with. 

I've gained confidence from blogging, publishing a poetry collection book and having new writing projects on the go.

I still struggle with low self-esteem at times, and find the critic in me cannot be completely silenced. 

Yet I am zealous in supporting fellow authors and encouraging people to write, because we all have the potential to touch lives with our words. 

The same is true for you, whether you share your story publicly or in a private journal. So keep on writing, scribbling, staying faithful, hopeful and encouraged. God sees and smiles at all your efforts—yes, even those you scowl over, crumple and throw in the bin.

Do you know what the real secret is? Your words are helping to shape you just as much (if not more) than they influence others. Let's aim to let the spirit of what we read and write speak to us and rest the critic's hat, because criticism can hurt, unless it's the constructive kind, spoken in love, with the other person's welfare uppermost in our minds.

Joy Lenton is a grateful grace dweller, contemplative Christian writer, poet and blogger, author of 'Seeking Solace: Discovering grace in life's hard places'. 

She enjoys encouraging others on their journey of life and faith at her blogs wordsofjoy.me and poetryjoy.com as she seeks to discover the poetic in the prosaic and the eternal in the temporal. You can connect with her on Twitter and on Facebook.