positive review

There is no greater compliment than being told my writing is something worthwhile. Writing is the one skill I have, this craft I have spent more time on than anything else. It is what I’m passionate about, what I can’t imagine life without. I still remember once when I was a kid and my dad tousled my hair and said, “that’s my little writer.” That carried me for a long time.

In undergrad, a professor wrote on the back of an academic paper:

Holly, 
You’re a kick. I laughed/chuckled numerous times. And your wit is trenchant [sharp, acute, incisive]!
Honestly, Holly, you need to WRITE [maybe books] in your future!! Listen up, F.S.*, this be yer teacher talkin’…TAKE CREATIVE WRITING!! 
 *F.S. stood for Favorite Student. I had got him to admit it.

That carried me for a long time, too. I ripped his note off the back of the paper and kept it in a notebook.

Then there were blog comments and those carried me.

And then today, I woke up to my best birthday present yet:

this last packet is amazing.

I am delighted. And some of these critical papers should be sent out.

This will carry me for awhile.

But the beautiful thing is, I don’t need these compliments anymore, as much as I want them. I have learned to believe them, without being told. I have learned who I am without being directed. Both as a writer and as a person. All the while, I had been writing through the rough draft and now I’m polishing myself into something more like a final version.