Dealing with criticism of something you've created

I've been neck deep in editing for a couple of months now. 

This week we mailed out the summer issue of Japan Harvest, the magazine I manage, the last issue that was largely put together in my absence in Australia. 

This week we finished editing the articles for the autumn issue and the designers are now working on it. 

This week I began receiving articles for the winter issue. Today I've been allocating the various tasks required for each article to various team members.

It's keeping my brain limber!

Finishing off articles includes checking with the author that they're happy with our edits. 97% of the time people are, or have only minor issues. 3% of the time (I'm guessing the percentages, by the way) someone has major issue with what we've done.

This week I had someone in that latter category. Thankfully he acted graciously and didn't take it personally, even though he felt as though we'd over-edited and taking his voice out of the article. That is precisely why I make a point of checking with authors (not every magazine does), because I've had this done to me and it isn't nice.

But it isn't easy to deal with criticism of your writing. It is something you get used to and even come to appreciate (as long as you don't come across an editor that isn't professional and fair). Here is a helpful blog post that gives some pointers about dealing with criticism of your writing. And a quote from the post:

It’s important to remember one truth: Your editor wants you to write something their readers will love.