when a friend asks for crit

[cvanshelton]

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In terms of publishing: I've been published (not self published) as have a number on this site. You can't make a living at it, not unless you play the tune the crowd wants to hear and as a rule, if you are pleasing them, your poetry probably is not very good, but everyone picks they're own path, no judgement here. I did find that trying to get published tended to force one to betray the poetry. I never wanted to be a poet and if I never wrote another poem it wouldn't bother me. I write because I am compelled. I know Leanne hates the term, and I do not mean this in an external way, but to betray the muse, or maybe the spirit of poetry for gain is not somewhere I want to go. I've been there. So it is a very difficult balancing act. I'm just speaking in general, not specifically about the "friend". My feeling is for one to really be a worthwhile poet, you have to take the egoism out of the equation and being afraid about how something will be received is completely about the ego. I'm not saying that is not understandable, but to be able to fine tune one's poetry, one has to become dispassionate about it and quit seeing it as part of oneself. That's a lot of what we do here, we force people to separate from their poetry so they can see it with a clear eye. That is really the main value in work-shopping, the information and knowledge gained not withstanding. That's also why we have the different forums, mild-novice-serious, so a person can get that tougher skin at whatever pace they feel comfortable. Regardless it is a painful process and we resist it. If that were not the case we would have thousands of active members on the site, but most people don't want to pay the price to improve, they just want to write the same old stuff and have people tell them how wonderful it is.  That's why places like poetry.com are bursting at the seams. I would say let your friend decide what she wants to do, with this one codicil. At some point there is going to be an editing process if anything is going to be published so tell your friend to be prepared, the main goal of the publisher is to make money and so they will make sure the material is cast in the best light in order to accomplish that goal.

Best,

dale

Dale, that was absolutely gospel. Good reminder for all of us. Thanks