Hi, I’m Michael Jamin, and I’m a professional television writer. And people often ask me, what do I think about critics? So kids, cover your ears. I don’t give a damn what the critics have to say about my work, right? I’m not doing it for them. I write to feed my kids and to feed my soul. So there’s really no place for them in the whole equation. I create things. I make things. That’s my job. Critics tear things down. They criticize. That’s their job. So if they don’t like what I’m doing, well, I don’t like what they’re doing. And that’s not to say I get a lot of bad reviews. When my partner and I ran a show called Maron on IFC, the critics loved that show. They really did. The reviews are terrific. But you can’t take the good reviews and not take the bad reviews.
So I just take no reviews. I just don’t really care. I don’t do it for them. And make no mistake, every critic, I mean, let’s be honest, they would give their arm and a leg to do what I’m doing to create a TV show, right? But they either don’t have the talent or they didn’t have the balls to chase their dreams. So I don’t really care what they have to say. So how does this affect you though? Well, you don’t have to deal with professional critics, but you have to deal with amateur critics. That means friends or family. So you’re working on your craft and there’s going to be someone, I know, who’s going to come out and say, “Yeah, should you really?” And your response is, “You know what? I’m not doing this for you.”
And they’re going to say, “Yeah, but I just think,” and then you’re going to respond, “You know what? It doesn’t really matter what you think. I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing this for me.” Right? So don’t let someone starve your soul. If your craft, whether it’s writing or performing arts or music or anything like that, you’re doing it to feed your soul. So who cares what the critics have to say? And by the way, I wasn’t good when I first started out writing. My original scripts, I can’t read without cringing. I will not look at them. But I persisted and I got better, and I learned, and I studied. And that’s how you improve. No one starts off great. So ignore the critics. Don’t even give them any attention at all. I hope this helps. I hope this will help you along your creative journey. For more tips on how I do it and how to write and how to break into Hollywood, you can follow me here. You can follow me anywhere on Instagram, @MichaelJaminWriter.
