I got the topic from: http://www.chrisbrogan.com/100-blog-topics-i-hope-you-write/ (no. 75)

My first criticization was simple, fortunately. It was about a mistake in one of my stories; a rule in that site banned dialogues using colons, and I used them.  I replied with a "Sorry, I didn't notice that. Thanks for mentioning it." 


When I was a newbie in the author world, I was always anxious when I receive e-mails from the site I was authoring in. Before opening an e-mail, I would always close my eyes and chant, "Please be good, please be good, please be good..." all over again.


When I joined the site's sister site and published a story there, a negative review came on my second chapter. And no, I had read the rules and was sure I had followed them. The review was actually long and it listed a lot of the flaws my story had.


I was disheartened and didn't want to update the story again. I was melancholy after a whole month of receiving that review. My friend--my wonderful best friend-- noticed it and told me her observations. Because of her persistence, I told her what happened. She told me that she liked that story and she was mad at the one who gave the critic.


I told her, of course, that in some parts the critic was right. She still remained unfazed and told me that I wasn't like that. She reminded me of the time I debated with my teacher in a question in my test and in the end, she finally gave up and corrected my answer. I laughed at that and was glad that she was able to make me happy.


When I arrived at home, I saw a new review for that story--my best friend's review. After that, I didn't feel so sad anymore, but I lost my interest in the story. Maybe it's because, even though I had brightened up, I still had that feeling of sadness inside me. And sadness, however small the amount, can affect a person greatly.

I feel that if I had never been disheartened by that one critic, I would have continued the story, but I have lost all inspiration and motivation I had at the beginning.

Critics are people who give their opinions on your story, book or others. Critics are the ones that give reasonable comments; the ones who don't are called "flamers." It is the author's choice if she/he wants to pay attention to the critic.

There are lots of ways to deal with critics. Here are some common ones:

• Confrontation. If you don't see eye-to-eye with the critic, you can go and tell him/her that. The critic will most likely defend his comment or listen to yours. That way, you can either see in the critic's point of view or you can teach him/her something new. But if someone puts a rude comment with no reasonability, do not thank him/her. Ignore the critic. He's probably just a person who wants to depress people, because of his sick reasons.
• Do Some Research. Look at the critic's profile, blog or website to see if he, himself, is good in the area he criticized. It's your decision what to do next. You can tell him that he's not knowledgeable enough on this subject to criticize, if he isn't. If he is, still read his comment and see if it's right, then go to the first way.
• Do Better. After you've experienced a good critic, you will most likely learn a thing or two. Do better in your next works and make your critics admirers.