In my circle of writing companions, I’m known for being the one who is the first to compliment someone’s work. I know how hard it is, and we deserve to have a cheerleader.

I’m also known for giving criticism that instead of cutting the manuscript apart, show you ways that it can be built up to be the best possible book you can create.

I’ve told this story to a lot of my friends, but it’s finally time I brought to light how I am able to find my fire and passion in writing.

When I started taking writing seriously, I was just a thirteen-year-old kid with blue pen, a lined notebook, and a dream.

The only computer access I had was at my local library, and even those computers were a few years behind the rest of the world’s.

I had dial-up internet there where I could spend the whole day on forums, and reading other people’s short stories, and even submitting a few of my own.

I remember specifically of one forum website I was on where it was a pretty small crowd.

There were English professors, European publishers, and a couple people from the deep south who had more than thirty years on me with writing, and this one particularly gruesome man under the username, Sharky.

Sharky used Alan Rickman’s face as his icon, and seemed to be the first person to comment on anything I ever submitted.

I’d spend my free period in high school writing short stories and scenarios that played out in my head instead of the Spanish homework I should have been working on.

I remember pouring my soul onto that site, and sure enough, Sharky would be right there to give me “advice”, such as saying things like, “I’m just taking you under my wing so you can be better,” and “Just stop. I don’t mean the story, I mean writing in general.”

“Stop writing, kid,” he’d say, “you’re not cut out for this kind of thing.”

Sure, Sharky was a monster, and every time I saw Alan Rickman’s face, my heart would stop, and I’d brace for impact.

He was ruthless, but there were some things he did that were right.

I was a snot-nosed teenager who didn’t know the rules of writing, and if I’m honest, it was probably the worst writing I’d ever done.

Sharky showed me where I did things wrong. I had to read between his lines of ruthlessness, and learn from my mistakes. If my descriptions were terrible, he didn’t shy away from asking me if I even considered what my character looked like.

If I had an inconsistency, he’d swoop in like a vulture to vomit in my face, pushing me further from my project until I hated it.

There were days that thought I’d never write again, but honestly, I couldn’t afford any other hobby. It wasn’t a mystery that I grew up poor, but it was difficult to pick a creative hobby that didn’t include buying a bunch of things.

I had to do it. I had to subject myself to the criticism, despite what Sharky would have to say.

Finally, there was one day where I’d written a short story about simply waking up in a grassy field, and not knowing how I got there.

It couldn’t have been more than six-hundred words long, but there it was, ready for the next viper strike from the dreaded Sharky.

I had to wait all week for the comments, and remember applying all the things that he had taught me I was stupid for doing, until teh following Tuesday, I ran to the library after school, and after what felt like three-hundred years of loading the page, the dial-up showed me his remarks.

“This doesn’t suck,” was the first reply the story got, and I remember feeling ten feet tall when I walked out of the library that day.

There was something about that moment that occurred to me; I was learning.

Sure, some people would ask me why I would keep posting to said site, but I knew it was making me better.

I decided to keep to it.

Over the next couple of years, I learned how to speak Sharky’s language, and decipher what I could learn from the abuse, and the more I applied myself, the more he realized I was getting better, too.

There was a spell where he came down on me with harder comments, telling me I knew better when I wrote bad things, but with each bad thing, I learned.

Like a scrap metal artist, my garbage was turning into something resembling art.

He gave me fire, and I was so competitive to show him what I could do. I took the insane things he said to me, and I wanted to tell him not to mess with me when he saw me write something. This competition in me continued throughout my life to today, where when I write, a primitive nature takes over my insides, and I write with all the passion I can muster.

All those mistakes I make along the way will be edited later. I will come back to them, and learn from them. I will prove to my readers that writing is an art form of the soul, and not a simple text on paper.

Eventually, the site died off, and all of us were forced to go our own ways.

I remember going through all that, and in my senior year in high school, I remember the comments my classmates got would decimate their confidence with their projects, but the corrections I got felt more like just that. I wasn’t told to quit, or run from it.

In fact, I barely got corrected at all with my class assignments, and the standard for my work was getting extra credit.

I had to love writing. I had to know that I could do incredible things with it, but I never would have gotten to where I am if I quit the first time I was hurt by someone’s comments on my work.

I of course learned to let go after all this, and to this day, there are times where I ask myself what Sharky would say towards my work, because despite the monster he was, he brought out the best in me. He was my Annie Wilkes from Stephen King’s book, Misery.

I never would have gotten to where I am now if it weren’t for him.

I don’t know if he’s out there somewhere, yelling at teenagers still, or perhaps he’s passed on. I have no way of knowing this.

This being my first experience with writing, I have become the member of my local writing groups who accepts criticism well. I look at writing as an opportunity to grow.

Before I start working on my book at night, I even pull out my journal, and write all my insecurities before writing. It get’s me loosened up for the main project, and it gives me a minute to purge my inner doubt.

In time I learned not only to forgive Sharky, but to thank him for beating the iron until it created a sword.

It’s important to know when to take advice, and when to ignore ignorance, but above all, put a Sharky in the back of your mind, and show him who the hell you are.

If you liked this piece, please follow Joseph D. Slater on Twitter @JosephDSlater.