Refusing to be a feedback junkie

I've spent many years as a bright-eyed - and in the early years as a writer, naive - feedback junkie.  For many years I lived by the motto "all feedback is good".  Until I grew a little in writing wisdom, and knowledge of my craft and the publishing industry.  Then I realised it simply wasn't true.

The thing is, feedback can be very destructive to the writer's heart if it's misguided.  Or even worse, if it's given maliciously, by a jealous fellow writer who is threatened by you and hell-bent on destroying you.  I've experienced both of these situations.

For several years I went on a writing weekend where the members critiqued each others' work.  I was usually the only science fiction writer in a group of thirty writers, most of who were mature - and quite a few elderly - women.  None of them wrote or read SF.  They were mainly contemporary women's writers or saga writers, with the odd romance novelist thrown in.

So you can probably guess how relevant the feedback I used to get was.  Not a lot, in short.  "That's interesting,", that great stalwart phrase of those who don't know what to say, does nothing to help me improve my writing.

I've been stupid enough to do the wide-eyed writer thing again recently, seeking an editor's feedback. The trouble this time was that she was a literary editor who neither read nor edited SF.  I've heard that somewhere before.  But what I haven't heard before is that I should put large chunks of my character's backstory into chapter one.   Mm, maybe I won't take her advice.

I really must be more selective in getting feedback.  I don't think it's unreasonable to consider that I, who've been writing and reading SF for forty years, and following SF writers, editors and agents on social media, might actually know more about the genre than this literary-focused editor.

So I'm making a resolution to be more selective in gaining feedback this year.  And that starts with not going to the big critiquing group in January.  

I'm done with people who have no passion for SF giving me feedback on my passion.