Feedback on writing is one of the more complicated things a writer has to manage — not because it is difficult to receive criticism, though it can be, but because not all feedback is equally useful and acting on the wrong feedback can make a piece worse rather than better. The writer who treats all feedback as equally valid, and revises accordingly, tends to produce a piece that pleases no one and reflects nothing.

The useful skill is not the ability to receive feedback without defensiveness — though that is worth developing — but the ability to evaluate it: to distinguish feedback that identifies a real problem from feedback that identifies a preference, and to know which to act on and which to set aside.