Support, sustenance, and growth

What a writer needs more than any­thing is feed­back. If you con­sid­er the word ”feed­back” in a dic­tio­nary, you learn that it is a very old Eng­lish word with many nuanced mean­ings, most of which have to do with food. In the con­text of writ­ing, the term that has most mean­ing is that feed­back can sup­ply the writer with nour­ish­ment, sup­port, sus­te­nance, and allow for growth. 

So much of writ­ing con­sti­tutes a pri­vate inte­ri­or dia­logue with­in the writer. You are tru­ly hear­ing voic­es, see­ing scenes, feel­ing emo­tions. How­ev­er, fol­low­ing my own dic­tum, that, “Writ­ers don’t write writ­ing, they write read­ing,” what does your writ­ing con­vey to a reader? 

In the world of the pro­fes­sion­al writer, it is the func­tion of the edi­tor to artic­u­late an answer to that ques­tion, and, if pos­si­ble put for­ward ideas, reme­dies, and sug­ges­tions for sur­mount­ing inevitable weak­ness­es, and hope­ful­ly, point­ing out strengths. Of course, writ­ers have oth­er ways of get­ting feed­back. One reads many an acknowl­edge­ment of an author’s part­ner for con­tin­u­al feed­back. There are trust­ed friends and writ­ing groups, too. These days it is not unusu­al for writ­ers to (pri­vate­ly) go to inde­pen­dent edi­tors for feedback. 

There are pit­falls here, but by lis­ten­ing, not debat­ing, one can learn a great deal. 

That said one of the great prob­lems in today’s crit­i­cal exchange is e‑mail. For­give me if I sound like a nos­tal­gic voice, but it used to be that edi­to­r­i­al com­men­tary was offered in care­ful­ly craft­ed let­ters, or more vital­ly, by talk­ing. Those conversations—for me at least—allowed for inter­ac­tive under­stand­ing, prob­lem solv­ing, and cre­ative engage­ment. E‑mail is more often than not a one-way street, and a nar­row street at that.

From where I sit, and write, a writer’s best feed­back for nour­ish­ment, sup­port, sus­te­nance, and growth is talk.