Zombie, you've hit the nail on the head here. The fear of criticism is so real for many people, which stops them from becoming better writers. But you're right, it's just words. And as someone who wrote reports for a living for many years, I am used to giving and receiving critical feedback on professional work. It doesn't phase me and the end result is always better. That said, I don't know if I've got to that place mentally with creative writing (not that I'm doing any anyway, so it's a moot point right now).

I hope that this post encourages more people to join TWB (or at least some other kind of peer review process), which would benefit steemit as a whole though higher quality content.