Leggy Creativity: When Validation Kills Your Work

Audio read by an an actual human, with occasional fluffs and errors

Have you ever had the right advice at the wrong time?

Thought that the solution to being stuck was to share your writing for feedback?

Trusted someone to help with your writing and then almost quit altogether?

Ignored your gut to take on someone else’s critique?

Been so floored by a casual comment that you stopped writing for months? (raises hand here)

Sometimes writing is like rhubarb. You have to know when and how to force it.

I’m not talking about chaining yourself to the desk — there are limited circumstances where that works, ahem, and why trigger the PDA? — but about how you treat your work and how you bring it out into the light of scrutiny.

Yorkshire’s Rhubarb Triangle, around Leeds, Bradford and Wakefield, grows the vegetable in specially darkened and warm sheds, plucking the stems by candlelight, in a method used since Victorian times. You can just picture it, right? Positively Dickensian. Creeping around, clutching a candlestick and a willow trug.

Stalks grown this way are delicate, sweet and untouched by sunlight or even electric light, which toughens it.

Like many other delicacies, Yorkshire Forced Rhubarb has PDO protective status, noting how its terroir and producers are intrinsically linked to its flavour.

To replicate this on a small scale, home gardeners often cover the growing crowns with a tall terracotta pot to replicate those conditions, until it’s ready. It’s shrouded in the dark, developing quietly, until it’s ready for consumption at its sweetest. The perfect point of readiness.

I want you to treat your writing like rhubarb.

It benefits from protection in its earliest growth phase.

When you expose it, it alters the final result.

As soon as it’s out in the light, it’s changed.

Ok you don’t have to live in Yorkshire, but if you fancy working by candlelight, have at it.

The crucial thing is you must fiercely protect your work.

So many of us are late starters, late bloomers, late diagnosed. It’s already an internal struggle to allow ourselves to spend time writing. So if we do develop enough trust to start, and then promote writing up the priorities list, ideally it’s taking up a chunk of our time.

And then someone asks the dreaded question/s:

Have you finished that book yet?

When is it going to be published?

Can I read it?

Your question to yourself: is now really the right time to fling open the shed doors?

Or are you just desperate for validation?

The answers to the first two are individual, and also none of their business. Unless they are your agent or editor and even then, well it probably depends.

The answer to the third one, no matter who it is, but especially if it’s someone who’s just nosy about how you’ve been spending your time, is NO, NO, and once again for everyone in the back, NO. Because that’s lifting the pot before it’s ready. Resist.

Because some of our nearest and dearest, and even our supporters and cheerleaders, seem to think that they are due an explanation of how you’ve been spending your time, and more crucially, whether you have “something to show for it”.

Growth isn’t linear. Earning self-trust isn’t an instant result. Making creative work, creating art, doesn’t always work to a visible timetable. You’re not a widget factory.

But the desire to prove that you’re spending your time wisely, being productive, earning your keep, can sometimes mean you force yourself to show your work — your rhubarb — before it’s ready. Throwing it out into the sunshine, where it might flourish. Or burn.

After days/weeks/decades in your creative cave, you crave reassurance, which is an utterly human response. You have years, possibly decades of criticism about being too verbose or too blunt - too much or too little.

It’s become hard to trust your own judgement. Which really stings, doesn’t it? You’re so excited about your idea but at the same time, there’s that devil on your shoulder whispering “yeah but it might be a bit shit.” So an outside opinion could persuade you it’s worth pursuing.

You want your work to be good, quickly, and for it be approved.

You’re also not really convinced you’re allowed to do this.

So you ask for feedback. If someone else can validate your work, you’ll allow yourself to continue with it. That’s a really slippery slope to go down, and it’s not one that you need to try.

So who’s getting access to the forcing sheds? Apparently some farms in the Rhubarb Triangle have stopped offering guided tours. You’re under no obligation to allow anyone into your space either.

But in practical terms, when you’re about to throw open the doors, you might find some of the 5Ws and How useful as a checklist before you start.

Who - who are you asking for feedback, and why did you choose them?

What - what sort of feedback do you need from them?

When - what stage is your project at? Back to forcing your work…

Why - a key question: why are you asking, why now?

How - verbal or written or talking it through together?

Like much in life, all feedback is not equal.

Requesting, receiving and giving feedback are skills. They can be learned, but many people don’t possess them, either innate or acquired. Plus there’s the curveball of RSD to deal with.

There’s a huge difference between indirectly seeking approval, permission to continue, or encouragement, and getting insightful, actionable feedback.

There’s also, often, Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD) in play for neurodivergent writers. All the negatives are magnified and every critical comment feels immensely personal, physical. It really hurts. It’s a huge blocker to making your work better by receiving and acting on good feedback which is immensely helpful when you’re resourced and ready for that insight.

Would you sell your rhubarb at the farmer’s market - or randomly chuck it at people in the street?

You’re going to get a different response from each person depending on their likes, dislikes and reading canon. There’s not much point in giving your granny your romantasy to read if she’s really into contemporary cli-fi. Is your partner an avid reader, or reading it just to support you - supporting is very different to critiquing. Don’t expect prescient editorial critique from your mate who hasn’t read a book since secondary school.

You need to be really specific about what sort of feedback you’re soliciting. Are you asking about a particular character, the pacing, the ending? To be clear, this is editorial critique, not reader feedback.

Further, it’s totally fine to ask for reader feedback. ON A FINISHED BOOK. Do not wrench your precious draft out of the darkness and thrust it into the hands of the first person you see and expect anything useful to come from their reading. Don’t kill your project stone dead before it’s fully grown.

Again, clarity is your friend here. Ask what the other person wants to know. Don’t just proffer up what you want (line edits when they are looking for help on structural issues, for example) and brief is often best - they can ask questions as needed.

Basically, get them to brief you on what they are looking for from your notes. Should feedback be verbal or written? Is there a deadline?

Not everyone is qualified to give you feedback. Even professionals, because advice is intrinsically personal. Even the right advice from the wrong person can be hard to interpret, if your RSD kicks in and you can’t see past the criticism being personal rather than aimed at improving your work.

Try to be as resourced as possible before launching into reading feedback. Make it an active choice. A lot of writers I know need time to digest notes (and often to contemplate hurling their laptop into the nearest large body of water) so if they hit you hard, you’re not alone.

Equally common is, after taking as much time as you need to process, finding some parts of the feedback you agree with. Or don’t agree with but you see a better way to fix it.

It’s worth taking time to think about all the questions above before handing over your creative work.

Because the wrong feedback, at the wrong time, can scupper you completely.

Even if the advice is pertinent, sometimes we’re not ready to receive it. Or there are too many variables still to process, so it’s overwhelming to know how to implement which changes in what order.

That can lead to lots of rewrites and editing, questioning your premise and voice, and in the worst scenario, shutdown and abandoning the project for a long time or even completely.

Not all creative work grows the same way. Back to the rhubarb!

• Forced (protected) rhubarb: early drafts kept private, thriving in low-stimulation conditions

• Outdoor rhubarb: work that grows steadily, shared when ready

• Exposed rhubarb: work shared too soon, pushed out

Some plants grow in the ground, outside, with little outside interference and does just fine, thank you very much. It just gets on with things. (I love it for you if that’s you and your work.)

Some of it is in a cocoon, protected and cosseted, fizzing and popping in a low-stimulation environment. (Think noise cancelling headphones, a writing retreat, a silent house.)

Some of it is half buried under a barrowload of manure aka a ton of shite that it didn’t ask for and it’s desperately trying to force itself out into the sunlight because it thinks that’s what it’s there to do.

It’s getting taller by striving so hard, all its energy going into getting out on top. Working so very hard. But it’s not robust. It could be at the cost of flavour. It’s all effort, without necessarily focussing on quality. Unforced rhubarb might need a little more sugar, just like raw drafts need more editing. Not everything is a race. Where are you putting your precious growth energy?

I call this leggy creativity — overstretching yourself in an attempt to force “growth”. You’re working so damn hard and reaching, reaching, but somehow you’re stretched in the wrong direction and you, your work, are not stronger for it. In fact you may not survive a strong wind.

Or harsh feedback.

It’s not about the work. You’re doing the work. It’s about the conditions.

In case I haven’t been clear: I implore you to only go looking for feedback when you’re in a position to receive it. If what you need is accountability or reassurance, then figure out where that could come from (small hint: one is external and one is internal).

Don’t be in a rush to send your work out. I know it’s so hard to sit on it, especially when you’re excited about it, but whether editor or reader: they only get to read it for the first time once. Make it the best version you possibly can before they have that experience.

What’s under your pot right now? What kind of feedback experiences have you had in the past? If you’re late diagnosed, can you look back at former experiences and see them now through a different lens?