“Howl:” Footnotes & Outrageous Spoilers

I operate on myself with no anaesthetic and tear apart the writing of Howl.

Photo by Danist Soh on Unsplash

Massive spoilers top to bottom here. If you haven’t read Howl, this will send you howling into the tar…

Story #7: Howl

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The Problem with Self Criticism

I had a final job interview this week. I was asked to lead a mock sales presentation. One of the questions during the last few minutes of Q&A was what I would change or didn’t like about my presentation.

This is a completely reasonable question, and in a work context where we’re all sharing the same goal it is an important one. But with some humor I demurred on answering it. I – thoughtfully, I hope – explained that anything I share that criticizes my own work will immediately become a “fact” in everyone’s imagination, including my own. Even if something didn’t appear to be a problem to anyone initially, it would now become one. I think the group understood.

I’m happy to report that I have a verbal offer on the job now. I’m even happier to report it is for a specific role and company I’ve been focused on for four months. There’s been some nail-biting, and this was not easy. So, yay. Never answer your job interview questions. What else would you like to know about why it took me four months to find a job?

So, why all this? Well, I’m sharing a lot of what I didn’t like about Howl below.

You probably had your own list after reading it, and now I’m going to add to the pile. You’ll have validation where you felt the same way, insight into the things you hadn’t noticed, but now will never stop seeing, and clarity around problems you sensed, but needed my generosity to call out and mark me down from a B- to a C+ or possibly south of there.

There’s a great argument to make that this post itself is a poor choice (and not adequately edited,) but long after and well before before my own writing, I’ve been interested in writing itself, so hopefully this is a little interesting.

At the end of the day, Howl has first draft all over it, not necessarily in a bad way, but I fear you’ve caught me with too many parts on the garage floor, a mechanic is sitting on the ground next to an oily wrench and his head on his knees because he’s forgotten where all the parts go, and he might have accidentally used one car’s parts in two others.

And I’m “proud” and not in the good way: It bothers me that you would see something that wasn’t “showtime,” and it bothers me even more that you might think that I think it was. It is possible I’m being far too hard on myself. Now you’re not going to hire me, and it will be another four months before I get another job offer.