A Lesson from Dickens

In my previous blog, I shared two of my New Year’s Resolutions. These were to set aside at least two hours writing time a day, and to learn from the feedback rather than take offence.

I certainly haven’t kept the first one. The excuse I give myself is that I am more interested in my second novel than the previous one and was waiting for feedback from some very kind beta readers before embarking on another draft. I am now beginning to receive feedback on “Scattered Lives” (a working title), and this brings me to my second resolution, which is even more difficult to adhere to. I can’t do much to alter my initial emotions, the appeal to my vanity when the response is positive or the hurt pride when it isn’t, but I can make a conscious decision to consider whether a criticism is valid and act on it if I can.

With this in mind, it was interesting to visit the excellent Charles Dickens Museum in London yesterday. I don’t get away from Suffolk much for various reasons, so I needed to choose our activity carefully when I met up with my sister for the day. He made his name through a collection of stories that later became known as the “Pickwick Papers” but the lack of structure was a subject of criticism early on. Undaunted, he went on to write fifteen more novels, all better structured, and although I have read and enjoyed at least five of them, until I saw the two shelves of his complete works I had no idea how long some of them were. It would be ridiculous to compare the quality of my writing with Dickens but I can at least learn from his determination.