We are all works in progress.
The creative life can be lonely.
For years, I spent hours in a studio making artwork to a design brief and budget, wondering when I’d have the chance to make the art my heart wanted to make. And now, I spend hours alone at my desk, making up stories in my head.
Head space is crucial for creativity, but it makes me feel less alone knowing there are others out there who also want to find their creative voice and an audience who wants to hear it.
The phrase real friends stab you in the front is widely attributed to playwright and author Oscar Wilde, but there is little evidence he ever said these words. It does sound like him though…
What does it mean?
How can a genuine friend be the one who’ll look you in the eye and stab you right in the front, figuratively speaking? In life and in art, good feedback can propel us forward, but the bad stuff can set us back years if we let it.
This book is a product of eight years of thinking and writing about the relationship between creativity and feedback and many more years immersed in the creative process
I believe quality feedback is often the missing link between good work and great work and that the best feedback comes from those who care about us and our work.
The goal of real friends stab you in the front is to encourage creatives to be open to feedback, learn to seek it wisely, welcome it, in all its forms, and use it. This book isn’t about the right or wrong way to write or paint or design or make movies.
It’s not about good art versus bad art, good or bad reviews.
It’s about asking the right questions of the right people, learning to trust ourselves and giving ourselves space to make whatever it is we want to make.
quality feedback is often the missing link between good work and great work, and that quality feedback comes from those who care about our work.
Christine Betts
Christine Betts trained in education and the arts. Following a career in design, she started writing in 2017. Her story, How I Got This Tattoo, won the 2022 Tasmanian Writers Prize, and her work has won, been shortlisted or long listed in: 2025 Hawkeye Manuscript Development Prize, 2021 Scarlet Stiletto Awards, QWC short fiction competitions, and published in multiple anthologies. Christine completed the Fiona McIntosh Commercial Fiction Masterclass in 2022.
Christine has been an active member of the Gold Coast Writers’ Association since 2019, where she co-hosts the GCWA critique groups. She presents writing workshops and ekphrastic writing workshops at the HOTA Art Gallery on the Gold Coast. Christine is on the committee of the inaugural Currumbin Crime Writers Festival and has volunteered as an In Conversation host for the Richmond-Tweed Libraries.
When she is not on a plane going somewhere or coming back, she lives on Bundjalung country with her husband and cats.
If you would like to know more about the Real Friends Stab You in the Front book, drop me a line below or subscribe to the Substack by clicking here.
