I can dish it out but can I take it? A valid question. Yes, I can take it and have the war wounds to show, but the scars are gone because they’re really badges of honor, not thinly healed wounds with ghost pains that still linger.
My first degree in accepting criticism did not come from Hollywood Screw U*. No, that’s where I got my doctorate. My first degree came from the Hart House Debating Society at the University of Toronto. One languid day, I drove across town and bumbled into a practice debate. I forget the topic now, but remember sitting there dumbfounded. watching people passionately argue back and forth about a hot political topic, making great, logical sense, building upon the points each speaker made, and most importantly, not coming to blows over it! In my family if you dared speak up, there were tears, tantrums and violence, so this was a biiiiig eyeopener.
The debate team, after systematically trying to destroy each other’s arguments by any legal means possible (yes, there was a referee called The Speaker), all went out to share a pitcher of beer. No hard feelings. They didn’t take winning or losing personally. It was all in a day’s work. (Important note: They handled themselves like winners because they were winners. This team had brought home a prestigious first prize at the world’s top tournament about 6 months before. A very big deal, in the international debating universe.)
So I signed up for the team, ignoring the well-founded sniggers. Three days a week, I stood at the front of a long table crowded with critics, and argued my take on topics of the day. For a whole year I stumbled over words, lost my place, forgot my point, grew red faced, and even watery eyed, especially when opponents threw sarcastic zingers at me. Everybody on the team took turns mopping the floor with yours truly. Early on, it was pretty obvious I was the worst member of the team. Lucky for me, they couldn’t kick me out of practice debates no matter how much I sucked. No, the only way to get somebody gone was by making them quit.
The first year was a bear. I was weak and knew it. Nothing in my liberal arts education or background had prepared me for anything like this. But I knew what I wanted—what they had. The ability to stay cool under pressure. To speak my mind without giving in or blowing up. I wanted with every fiber of my being to be able to speak for myself with dignity and maybe even a little grace. Quitting was not an option, because I had to learn this, had to have it to make me a better thinker, and therefore a better writer. Nobody and nothing was going to make me quit, not even temporary embarrassment and defeat.
I started visualizing myself as a boxer. I saw myself taking hits, falling on the ropes, dropping to the canvas and bleeding in the ring, but never leaving. “Just stay in the ring,” I told myself.
Stay in the ring.
Round after round, debate after debate. Stay in the ring.
And I did.
The second year I gained mental muscle and learned some craft. I held my own in a few rounds here and there. The team accepted me and I started competing at other universities. By my third year of competition, I ranked 9th top university speaker in the country, and competed at Harvard twice. My crowning achievement was election to the board of the club, and being sent as a judge to the World Debating Championship, hosted that year by the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa.
I had learned the meaning of grace under pressure. I’d also learned how to let someone else have their say, not interrupt, and still have my fair share of talk time to comment or respectfully disagree. Little Elaine had taken a truckload of criticism and transformed it into something valuable.
This experience in accepting criticism was invaluable when I faced down real critics in Hollywood. I’d been conditioned to not let critics throw me, even when words were not chosen that carefully and could have cut me to the quick. Part of achieving success is being able to separate the critical facts you need from emotional negativity, which you don’t.
This is my first installment in accepting negativity, and it won’t be the last.
* Coined in homage to Robert Ringer who first called himself a graduate of Screw U in Winning Through Intimidation, his NY Times bestseller.
If you write only at your computer, you’re wasting time! How do I know? Because shortly after starting my first novel, I realized if I waited for a quiet moment at the computer, it would take me years to get the thing done. I was toiling as a bank VP’s assistant, lo those many moons ago, and figured if I took a pen and paper with me, writing could be done during the 40-minute subway ride to work. At lunch, out for a walk, whatever, I could get a paragraph here, a page there, and they’d all add up.
Nobody can work in a vacuum.
I assume, if you’ve found me here, that you’ve already visited Beat to a Pulp online, where I hold down the Editor at Large position. Or you’ve read a little about me at my web site, which promotes my editing business outside of BTAP.