My Evolution

I don't want to be this person. They're just critiques from strangers. And they're not even bad ones, most of them are really constructive.

I know they're helpful. I will use them to make the story stronger. Re-reading through my work, I saw them as errors and had no idea how to fix them. At least now, I have some guidance.

I just wish my ego wasn't so butt hurt right now.

What did I expect to read exactly? A love letter to moi about how awesome I was?

Okay, yeah, I sorta was.

"Ohmigod, you mean, I have to work on somethings? I'm not like perfect?"Paul is teasing me in a Valley girl voice, trying to get me to laugh.

He succeeds.

"But seriously, babe," he continues. "You wanna be told how amazing you are because you had so little of that growing up."

I don't want to hear this. I feel small and pathetic when he voices that vulnerability of mine. I hate that girl. I don't want to be this person who needs validation from others. I want to be able to take critiques as advice on my work, not on me.

I'm working on it. I really am.

I see women older than me who haven't. I don't want to be petty and insecure when I'm their age. I don't want to be jealous. I don't want to have the foundation of my self-confidence built on the opinions of others.

No. I want to be the woman who can take criticism and see it for what it is: an opinion about my work, not on me as a person. I want to be the kind of woman who is genuinely happy for other people's success and not wonder, "Why not me?" I want to be the kind of woman other people will instantly recognize as a bad-ass, confident alpha bitch who does things her own way on her own time.

So, yeah. That's where I want to go. Right now, I'm not there yet. This is just small time shit. When I go live, I don't want to be checking Amazon obsessively to see how readers rated my book. I don't want to be that pathetic creature. I want to move on and be working on the next one and not let any of the haters (b/c I fully know there will be haters) get to me. I'm not going to stop. I'm going to keep going, and they're going to be driven insane, because they'll know they couldn't touch me.

As M.C. Hammer says, "You can't touch this."