It's something that never stops hurting, but you get to the point where you're able to ignore the pain.
As a writer, no matter how much we try, no matter how much we pour our hearts into our writing, there will always be people who tell us it's bad.
Does that mean it's bad? I got no idea. If going off other people's ratings was what led me to think that my writing is good or bad, I wouldn't have written so much. There have been times where I was reading my own novel to edit it where I cried. There have been times where I've laughed so hard I've fallen over. There have been times where I've been shivering at how epic it was.
If my own writing can make me feel something like that, then how on earth could it be bad? Even if there are many people who tell me it is, I honestly think they're just full of shit.
Who knows? Maybe I'm just an egomaniac who is lost in his own delusions, and my writing is the garbage of the garbage. But even so, the fact that I enjoy it remains.
And to you my friend, I will tell you this.
Strive to improve. I've considered heavily all the criticism that comes my way, and I find that I put so much more though into.... every little detail. There are so many more things I consider now when I write than when I first started because of how many things I've learned. To be good at writing, I think, comes with experience and failure.
But so long as you are learning and improving, don't ever let anyone tell you that your writing is bad. I've seen things which have made me depressed, like stories that are written by people who can barely speak English and a whole bunch of readers being supportive and helpful, encouraging the writer when the only comments on my story are "Badly written" and "Quit here"
But such is life.
To cry at some criticism over something you poured yourself into, I think this is natural. There have been times where I've wanted to smash my fist into a wall when someone tells me that my story was bad or uninteresting.
However, as I said before, as long as we continue to improve we will get better and maybe those haters will one day be outshone by the number of supporters. I've gained a number of supporters after a very long time of writing, and I've come to realize that many people who read and enjoy are actually just silent about it. Many who complain are just the loud majority. As much as I wish that this silent majority would speak up, this is the internet. People will do as they wish.
