Look Out For The Saving Graces...

It has literally been one of the most stressful weeks I've had in months.
Hence why I've been so quiet on here. Sorry about that!

New role at work and it's quite challenging...mentally mainly. I've been feeling drained and distracted. I sometimes have to remind myself that work only takes up 8 hours of my day and after those 8 hours I'm free to relax...well...sort of...

I've been a wreck for a couple of days so when my editor came back to me with a revision on my partial manuscript for Tempted earlier this week I saw it as a saving grace. I can't give anything away regarding the deets but all I can say is I'm absolutely BUZZING!
Positive feedback, while can keep us smiling and gives us that extra oomph, can also steer us in a better direction in whatever we do. In this case, hearing what you can do better when you feel you've already done your best can be quite wounding. 
It's understandable, you've worked hard at something, spent hours putting effort into it, then hear that it's not yet at the top...we've all been there.

But time heals all wounds and sometimes you need to have a piece of humble pie and strive to be better. There's ALWAYS room for improvement. I've always known that.
From experience you'll get people who want to see you fail, who try to put you down emotionally in whatever way they can--but it takes hard lessons to learn how to differentiate between the fakes and the genuiene.  I remember a fellow student at my university who used to slaughter my work...god knows what her problem was, but it used to really affect me. In the end I grew to realise her opinion really didn't matter. I knew my writing style and my worth and so I took constructive criticism from my lecturer and pushed on.

Criticism comes in every shape and form in every action you do. The trick is to accept these criticisms but try to avoid internalising them otherwise they'll make you paranoid and low..the .best thing you can do is to work on yourself (not for their satisfaction, but for your own) so these criticisms become nothing but air on the future.

In all honesty I continue to face a lot of criticism. Specifically with my writing. But I accept only the constructive and then make plans to see if I can work on improving. Not for their sake, but for mine. This week my editor gave me a lot of CC and I embraced it with open arms because I know at the end of the day she's genuiene, and it's for my own benefit. Even if my week was going badly, it lifted me up in the best way possible.
 
Saving grace is what I call those moments. The positive vibe that comes exactly at the right time.

S.R
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