You started out a good writer, and your critique partners are part of a process that made you even better. You’ve worked hard, and listened to what that phenomenal group of readers and commenters has to say, and you can really see a difference between the stuff you wrote pre-group and the stuff you write now. This is working. It really is. You’re getting better.
In fact, you just might be the best one in the group. Secretly, you’ve always harbored the belief that you could be. That sneaking suspicion has grown into the belief that you ARE. You’re the best in the group. Oh, you’re not going to gloat or be smug, and you’re still giving 110% when it’s your turn to write a critique. So it’s not like that.
That’s a good thing, right? You’re the most likely to get published. The one who can give the best advice – delivered tactfully, of course – to the others. You get respect and approval, and everybody loves your work, and critique after critique says “I can’t find much to complain about here.” You’re the biggest fish in that pond.
Careful.
It FEELS like a good thing to be the biggest fish in your pond. It’s something you could get used to. It’s comforting, and comfortable, and the accolades are nice. That feeling of being helpful, and of teaching others, and of genuinely assisting up and coming writers to become better… those feelings are pretty great.
But it’s not good news.
That process of improvement, of fresh air let into your work through the puncture holes, of critiques that make you gnash your teeth a few times before you pay attention – that uncomfortable, damnable feeling of having things to learn – remember? That process has just stopped.
Once you’re the big fish, it’s dangerously easy to be seduced into thinking that you’ve stopped growing because there’s no more room to grow. A writer can’t afford to become complacent and self-important. We have enough ego already – yes, expressed just as often in breast-beating and despair as it is in self-congratulation and smug assistance to others, but it’s still ego.
In my critique group, I’m far from the biggest fish. I’m blessed with several other writers who knock my socks off. I’m further blessed with writers who are better than I am at different things – I can learn about plotting from one person, story structure from another, method from another.
Best of all, I’m blessed with wonderful writers who frequently disagree with me. Often I have to go home and sleep on their words before I can shut my ego up enough to listen, but whether I end up changing my ways or not, their viewpoints are always valuable. I couldn’t ask for a better group of readers.
If you’ve become the victim of fishism – if you’re splashing in a pond that doesn’t have any room left for growing – consider flooding yourself with new ideas, new disagreements, new discomforts, and new critique partners. Start that painful learning process again. It’s a big ocean.