by Felicia Day
Did any of these ideas make you excited to go try them? To show the world something unexpected? Our best art comes from aiming to change people’s minds! (Or channeling spite. That’s good motivation too.)
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Criticism
After we’ve made something amazing and authentic that we’ve put our hearts into, and present it to the world, so delicate and new and precious… SPLAT!
We’re often hit in the face by CRITICISM.
Remember how squishy and soft the Pillsbury Doughboy is when he presents his baked goods to the audience in the commercials? That’s how every creator feels when we offer up our creativity to the world. And when that finger comes in and pokes his soft little belly in the end and he giggles? That’s like the criticism we get of our work! Except instead of a finger, it’s a knife, and instead of giving a gentle poke, it stabs us in our soft creator bellies and our guts spill out onto the floor. Oh, and we’re screaming instead of giggling. Graphic enough? Here’s a picture.
Everyone’s a critic. In a world of infinite content, people fling arrows of criticism, like Legolas machine-gunning his bow at groups of orcs. (Except not that hot.) Our brains don’t know how to appreciate the bounty of creativity we enjoy now. In 1454, there was like ONE lute player. That’s all they got. And she was not great and died of the plague. Now we have the equivalent of ten million lute players, five billion troubadours, and a zillion jousters. (Not to mention ten thousand bear baiters on the dark web.) No wonder we dunk on others’ creativity without empathy!
When I ran my web video company Geek & Sundry, we needed content. CONSTANTLY. We couldn’t generate all the ideas ourselves, so we’d read tons of submissions, each one a precious project that an artist had put their heart and soul into. I could devote maaaaaaybe five minutes to each before mostly saying, “Nope!” and throwing it on the reject pile. At one point I looked over at the discarded stack near my desk and thought with horror, That foot-high pile is a beautiful vault comprising people’s dreams. And I’m about to go shred it.
We’re all guilty of being casual critics. The offhand way I said last week, “I hate Beau Bridges’s voice; he sounds like a reanimated teddy bear,” made me ashamed after it came out of my mouth. I don’t know Beau Bridges. But I do know that making an effort not to throw hate around at his voice might make me go easier on my OWN voice when I accidentally hear myself on a podcast. (Also, a reanimated teddy bear is cool, so why the hell would I hate on that in the first place?) A less critical attitude toward others’ creativity is, in the end, better for our OWN creativity.
So when it comes to consuming others’ work, our moms were right. “If you can’t say something nice, then bring something for everyone and I don’t wanna hear it, you’re brushing your teeth and then we’re going to that twenty-four-hour kung fu marathon at the college so plan on skipping all your classes tomorrow.” Oh wait, that’s only my mom. Forget it.
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Think of a recent instance when you criticized someone else’s work.
Were your words fair? Were they NECESSARY?
If you put yourself in the other person’s shoes, hearing your own criticism, are you hurt by what you hear?
The kinder we are to others’ creativity, the kinder we will be to our own.
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Unfortunately, no matter how hard we empathize with our critics, it’s hard to see criticism as anything but negative—because it’s a potential danger to our inner creator. “Mom said my pie was gloopy. I’m mortally wounded now. Hold me.”
When negativity hits us, it can activate our own fears about our abilities. No one gets upset at something they themselves don’t fear is true, deep down underneath. That’s why I get hurt when someone on Reddit calls me “camel face.” I mean, it’s not the most INACCURATE animal for my facial features. But we have to step away from our personal insecurities and try to see criticism as it is meant to be: a necessary result of the act of creation. We made something! And by making something, we sort of asked for it! You can’t order a Bloomin’ Onion and be surprised at getting heartburn!
The word criticism is, by definition “the analysis and judgment of the merits and faults of a literary or artistic work.” Positive AND negative judgment. When we put our work forward, we are asking for judgment. We cannot control if that is negative or positive. We can only control the work itself. Is our Hero-Self satisfied with it? Did we put everything we could into it before letting it go? If we didn’t, duly noted. Allow one hour to cry. Moving on.
Because at the heart of it, criticism is a gift. Someone used precious moments of their lives to consume a piece of you. Not like a cannibal, that’s not a gift, that’s murder. Unless they didn’t kill you themselves, in which case, it’s just highly illegal. I mean they consumed your creativity! You sent something out in the world and they didn’t ignore you.
Every piece of our own creativity that we release into the world has the potential to feed the chaos that spurs all other originality in the word, butterfly-effect style. (Like chaos theory, not the movie. The movie was… it had great cinematography!) So try to reframe criticism through the lens of making a contribution to the collective creativity of the world. Then no matter others’ reactions, we have done our part. And we can keep going no matter what feedback we get.
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Below is a set of boxes. In the first one, insert something you could see yourself creating in the future.
Now fill in the remaining boxes as imaginary stepping stones between your creation and the bottom box.
We never know how our creativity will affect others. Everything has a possible link to everything else. That’s why we need to make as many things as we can. For the fate of the world!
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The truth of it is, resisting criticism is all tied up in our egos, not our actual creativity. When we create expressly for the praise, we feel like we want to commit hari-kari if people don’t receive our work like we’re the second coming of Michelangelo. Because in doing that, we put all the value in the result, not in the creating itself. But if we do our best as creators every minute of the process of creating? A criticism might help us do something better the second time! Like every James Bond villain finds out: the best-laid plans will always be ruined by not properly policing the air vents. The path to improvement is channeling the attitude, “THANK YOU! I can be a BETTER supervillain now! Full crew on air vents, please!” instead of “James Bond ruined my plans by coming through the air vents. Guess I’ll hang up the evil laugh and retire to a max-security prison now.”
I can’t tell you how many times, when I’m writing, I get a FEELING something’s not right, but I don’t have the tools to dig in and fix it at the time. And rather than dig in harder, I just move on. (Always a bad call. If your inner creator smells rotten fish, figure out where the rotten fish is. It’s not going to smell less rotten with time.) Later, if someone points out the flaw I knew was there but I didn’t know how to deal with, I feel ashamed. But then I get over it. Because “past me” wasn’t equipped to solve the problem. “Two-hours-after-receiving-a-note me” can totally fix it!
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Think of the worst criticism you’ve ever received. The more gutting, the better. Write about it in excruciating detail. What happened. How it made you feel.
Now think about it from the opposite point of view. How could you make the criticism WORK for you? Make a game out of brainstorming ways it could improve your situation or creativity for the better.
Finish by making a list of what you’re PROUD of in your work to counterbalance.
Do whatever it takes with criticism to get back up and start creating again!
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Everything creative we put out into the world is just a way to figure out how we can be better. Grow more. Be more innovative. Just like test-case Oreos. Candy corn flavor? Gross. Hard pass. But Oreo doesn’t close up shop if people hate on one of their experiments, do they? No!
They try other things! Like Carrot Cake Oreos! Double blech! NEXT! So look at criticism as other people helping us practice better, that’s all. (And it’s okay to cry a little too. Just give yourself a two-hour limit, otherwise your eyes will be puffy for a week.)
Human Enemies
Unfortunately, sometimes a person isn’t critiquing our work at all; they want to discourage us from creating altogether. There’s a wide range of foes like this we could encounter. From those who have their flamethrowers out in an obvious way, to those who sneak matches in their pockets under the guise of “passive-aggressive Aunt Lily and her condescending smile when you tell her you want to go back to school and study interior design.” These folks must be anticipated if we want to protect our creative gardens, because they’re packing heat and they’re heading for our lands!
I had a great series of sessions with a hypnotherapist once who was an actual accredited professional, not some dude on the corner with a watch on a chain. I went seeking help for audition anxiety. He taught me that, during the act of creativity, we are at our most vulnerable. And we need to try to block the voices of destructive people from hitching a ride with us as we create.
Think about it: football teams never bring cheerleaders along to chant, “Don’t screw up! You’ll probably screw up! Number thirty-four sucks! GOOO, TEAM!” However innocuous people who harm our creativity may seem, however far away in geography or time, they are always there, lingering. And like garlic breath, their voices inside our heads take FOREVER to go away. The shame they made us feel. (It’s described as “burning” for a reason. Hello, flamethrowers.) The mockery. Offhand insults. “Oh, your collages are so sweet.” They’re as powerful as salt on a slug, and they dissolve us over time.
If we try to pretend that something as insignificant as a kid named Trent mocking our drawings in front of the class in fifth grade DOESN’T influence how we approach creativity, then that crap-head will always be lingering in a corner of our brain. Wearing an A&F button-down. Smelling like glue. Sneering at our drawings of dragons in front of the whole class. BEGONE, TRENT! I SEE YOU! AND CAST YOU OUT!
Until we confront them, we can never be free of them.
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Think back on your creative past. Were there incidents when someone close to you made you feel ashamed, embarrassed, or discouraged around your creativity? Summarize them in the ghosts here.
Now make up a spell to banish the memories. As silly or arcane as you want! Read it out loud. Chant. Burn incense. Make a small ceremony over it. IT IS DONE! The ghosts can move on now! And so can you!
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What helps is to be brave and dredge up the memories and the people involved. Yes, we’d rather bury them six feet under, but go ahead and yank them into a spotlight. And like an FBI agent, interrogate them. “WHERE WERE YOU IN… OH WAIT, I KNOW EXACTLY WHERE YOU WERE. IT’S BURNED INTO ME LIKE A REGRETTABLE TRAMP STAMP. NEW QUESTION: WHY DID YOU DO THAT TO ME?” Using a keen, Nancy Drew magnifying glass, we may be able to see the workings of the selfsame demons we battle in our own heads in the heads of our real-life creative enemies.
When I first moved to Los Angeles, I took any job I could get. There was a notice in the actor’s paper, Backstage West, for an independent film. Five roles for girls in their early twenties. (Already a red flag, but hey, I was naïve.) I showed up and was hired by the creator, a brother of a very famous actor. And he NEVER let us forget it. “When my brother was in X Oscar-winning film…” Blah, blah, blah, BLECH. He would have us improvise, and then TYPE UP the script that WE had made up for him! This guy was terrible. He would have us fetch coffee and get mad if there wasn’t enough cream in it. And he was irate when we couldn’t make one of the weekly rehearsals that he didn’t pay us for. WE DID THIS FOR FOUR MONTHS. After a while I quit. And surprise, he tore into me when I did. “You’ll never work in this town again!” was literally said on the phone. And I never saw him again. Well, except ten years later.
I was randomly walking down the street in Hollywood a few years back, and I saw him. And my heart started pounding in fear. Ten years later. I almost ran the other direction. He approached me and I was so frozen I couldn’t leave. “Felicia?” He reintroduced himself (like I could have FORGOTTEN) and then… apologized. He went on to say that he had not been a good person back then. He had let his demons control him. And substances. And he wanted me to know he was sorry about how he had treated me. Then he left.
I ran back to my car and burst into tears. But they were good ones. Because, deep down underneath, I realized that working with him had made me wary of collaborating with other people for a long time. And the apology had closed the wound somehow. Would I work with him again? Hell to the no! But being able to see him as a flawed human being robbed him of power and reframed the memories. That incident has made it easier for me to look at other negative people as possibly wounded and flawed too. Which in turn, has robbed THEM of power over ME.
There are very few Ramsay Boltons in real life. Just like terrible, “doing it just to harm others” people. Everyone is a hero in their own mind. Whether motivated by jealousy or guilt or regret, people who seek to disrupt our creativity are probably unknowingly motivated by their own enemies working inside them. If we can offer them a little sympathy, then we can rob them of their power over us. They’re flawed. Just like we are.
Buuuuut however empathetic we want to be, our creativity is too delicate and vulnerable to allow everyone all-access. That’s why a backstage pass at a concert is hard to get: how many randos might show up naked, covered in peanut butter? I’d say a lot if it’s a Phish concert. But as long as we’re aware, we can draw lines around how we allow other people to interact with our creativity. We can be vigilant in defending and dealing with real-life enemies before they can warp the process of our art.
Sometimes we just need to compartmentalize people a little—even ones very close to us—away from our creativity and give them access only when we are sure not to be vulnerable. If it activates something bad in them to be exposed to our creativity, why harm EITHER of us by allowing it to happen?
We are here to sign up for a lifetime of future creativity. Because it will give us joy. And in a variety of ways, for a variety of reasons, others may show up to take that feeling away from us. Life sucks like that.
In the end, we can’t control the world. But we can control how we RESPOND to all of it when we’re armed with the right tools. When we build strong enough walls to protect our creative gardens. Then our creativity will flourish. And we can offer a glorious bouquet to the world with a smile: “Here is something beautiful that I loved the process of growing. Do with it what thou wilt.”
Or in modern terms, “SNIFF THIS, MOFO!”
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List ten people in your life. Beside each name, write how you think each one of them would react to your telling them, “I am a creative person who has unique things to say.” Really imagine the scene as it plays out, and focus on your imagined emotions as you make your declaration.
With whom do you feel most vulnerable?
Why?
Is there anyone on the list who, no matter how you think about it, will always be a negative force around your creativity? Anyone you would be afraid to show something you put your heart into?
Draw them into the doorway below.
Now close the door.
Stare at the closed door. What do you feel?
You have permission to be happy about that closed door! They can still be in your life, but they aren’t THERE when you create. The door is shut to protect your inner creator. You have a right to protect yourself!
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Summarize Enemies
The training montage is done! We’re prepared as much as we can be for enemy assaults on our creativity. We are quote unquote “pumped the heck up.” If anything in this section was uncomfortable to deal with, GREAT! That means we hit a nerve. We don’t get toothaches for no reason. Something is rotten under there, Hamlet. And
whatever it is, we need to muster the tools to deal with it before resorting to emotional root canals. I think that involves rebirth exercises and stuff. It ain’t pretty. Let’s avoid it if we can, ’kay?
Our creativity is delicate and tasty. Like the smell of fresh-baked bread, it can’t help but attract forces that want to devour it. (To be precise, the compound 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline [2AP] makes that fresh, crispy scent. I don’t even know chemistry, but boy, is that hawt when it’s spelled out.)
There will always be enemies lined up, ready to attack. But now we know how essential creativity is to our lives. As necessary as food and shelter and sleep and game nights. If that means we need to kick mental or physical ass to defend it… bring it, world! We are locked and loaded and ready to move on!
Er… after we finish the next few pages. THEN we’ll be ready.
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Circle the enemy below that seems most likely to flare up and oppose your creativity:
POWERLESSNESS/ANXIETY/PROCRASTINATION
PERFECTIONISM/FEAR OF FAILURE/SHAME/REGRET
JEALOUSY/STEREOTYPES/CRITICISM/HUMAN ENEMIES
Do you feel better prepared now to keep creating if and when it arises? State it to the world! Complete the statement below:
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With that gauntlet thrown, I’m sure we’re all feeling super confident, ready to stride into our creativity-filled futures. BUT WAIT! HOLD UP! SERIOUSLY, STOP. I HAVE ONE LAST POINT TO MAKE!