A Quick Little Cheat

I shouldn't be doing this. I've got three deadlines to meet by October 1. Now I'm not complaining mind you; one of those deadlines is for the third book in my Future Imperfect trilogy: Final Deceit; one is for an article for my publisher's blog (tomorrow in fact-yikes!) and one is for an online magazine--talk about things coming in threes! I've been unbelievably blessed with my publication journey and am doubly grateful when I hear of the struggles of other authors trying to get published.
But sometimes you just gotta break away and air out those space planes in your brain. This, I've decided, is one of them! This started out to be a nonsensical essay, but today (Sept. 1) marks the 10 year anniversary of Writing.com and I'd like to thank it/them for this opportunity to work on my writing chops and receive some truly honest reviews that charged and catalyzed my determination to be not just a writer, but a good writer--which is more important in my humble opinion!
I gotta tell ya' the first collection of my stuff posted here when I decided to return to writing was, well, shall we say,,,terrible? I mean, bad, like the ramblings of a complete lunatic, which is in reality what I am. A few brave souls picked apart my "works" with real honesty and stood firm against the railings they expected to receive in return.
But I am fair. I do give credit where it's due, even if it kills me doing it.
And those reviewers deserved credit. They were a little brutal but they did something for me with that literary brutality. They shamed me into wanting to never have that reaction to my work ever again. I swore I would never again have such awful reviews. And the only way to do that was to do two things: 1. Write the best I possibly could by trying to reach perfection and 2. Beat them to it by being even more brutally honest with myself.
So far, those tactics have worked out fairly well. I do get good reviews and even the one that was middling still called my book "a page turner". (I love that review too.)
I guess the moral is this: USE every thing that gets thrown at you by reacting with positive determination. Rather than shrink into yourself with insecurity, stretch outward instead and absorb the lesson. It only hurts when you don't smile.
SimplyBlue.