Director, playwright, and poet Jean Cocteau straddled worlds. His movies were like phantasmagorical dreams, his limpid writing flowed like filmstrips. For a few decades, his work defined much of what people meant when they talked about the avant-garde.

In other words, Cocteau was not an artist like most others. Because of that, he had very specific advice for those just starting out in their careers, which applies to writers as much as any artist:

Listen carefully to first criticisms made of your work. Note just what it is about your work that critics don’t like—then cultivate it. That’s the only part of your work that’s individual and worth keeping…