Showdown at the Critique Corral: writer emerged enlightened and "unleaded".

"The first thing you need to know is that your team leader packs heat." Not just heat, but a Glock 26. "And she likes to shoot."

This was my welcome on the first night of the National Conference of Editorial Writers in Kansas City, Missouri, courtesy of a California editorialist. He was speaking about my Texas twister of a critique team leader, Fort Worth columnist and Star-Telegram deputy editorial page editor J.R. Labbe.

My stomach didn't need the assist. I was already apprehensive about attending my first writing critique as a rookie opinion writer at the Omaha World-Herald. My editorial page editor, Geitner Simmons, had tried persuading me that things would be fine, but I'd have none of it.

This lack of confidence was strange for a thirty-year-old who'd been writing for newspapers since seventh grade, an uneasy feeling foreign in nearly a decade as a reporter, content editor and most recently communications director for the governor of Nebraska. My gut was doing belly flops.

Each of us was broken down into teams of about five or six editorial writers, editors and columnists for a detailed give-and-take about our strengths and weaknesses as writers. It's just the sort of feedback writers crave, the sort that gets rarer with every year in the day-to-day of the news business.

We each had to write detailed critiques for two of our team members. I was assigned David Haynes of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, a gifted writer and metropolitan news contemporary. I also had to weigh the writing of Labbe, a revered lioness and former president of NCEW.

Sounds simple, no? So does writing.

I'd worked hard in between editorials over two months to prepare detailed-but-constructive critiques of my assigned writers. They included such nuggets as, "Clear, concise writing seems to be a particular skill within the articles included," and, "elegant variation in a handful of pieces could've confused the reader."

Yet I remained nervous even after meeting my cordial and armed critique team leader outside of the Hotel Intercontinental, awaiting a bus. My Adam's apple constricted. My tongue felt like neatly vacuumed carpet. We exchanged niceties as I tried to gauge her openness to critique.

She seemed nice, but how was I to know?

I could swear I heard the clinking of a condemned man's ankle restraints during a short walk the next day to Conference Room 241. But a funny thing happened en route to the chair. She smiled.

People laughed. The first few people talked about writing, and the edge was gone. It was an honest, ideologically free writing critique. No drama. Just help.

My team members understood I was a rookie. They were honest but kind, offering meaningful suggestions about using simpler words, being more natural with tone and sharpening my opinions. The free-wheeling nature of the give-and-take was relieving.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

I eased my way through a critique of Haynes, and most people felt similarly, having read the same clips. I could feel a wellspring of hope. But I still had to critique my leader--and leave unleaded.

Motivated and terrified, I stepped forward. I spoke honestly about her obvious command of the English language, about her skill at communicating in a Southern voice, even about some challenges in a complicated editorial about the "law of parties" that left a getaway driver on death row.

Labbe was receptive, engaging, and seemed pleased to receive constructive criticism, no matter how meek its messenger. All my fears were confounded. I had learned, and it was painless.

She joked with me at the critique's conclusion when told I had been assigned the critique session piece for The Masthead, saying in a modest twang, "You don't ask a woman how many guns she has."

Still, the former president didn't flinch when I said I assumed she was packing in her purse. She smiled and angled her head. Don't tell her, but as she walked into the hall, I kept my back to the wall.

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Aaron Sanderford is an editorial writer at the Omaha World-Herald in Nebraska. Email: aaron.sanderford@ owh.com