Workshop Stupidity

theirs and mine

I had written a pretty good story. Spent two years living inside it, revising it, getting to know and understand the characters. I had a ball doing it, felt like the thing was alive, brimming with good energy. As I worked on this story, my day-job felt bearable, the world a little sharper and interesting. I was a little nicer to the people I loved.

Then I brought the story to one of my first workshops.

“Why did you choose to write this from a man’s point of view? Aren’t there enough stories centering men?” Asked (accused) a man I’d met exactly one day prior.

Did I say any of the following things to this person?

“Well, I don’t really know. Writing is kind of a mystery, right? It’s the subconscious at work and at play. That’s the character who came to me and spoke to me, through me. I find him interesting and relatable and complex. I wanted to spend time with him.”

OR

“How dare you ask me that question? It’s insulting and has nothing to do with anything but your psychotic, boring, regurgitated ideas about who gets to write what.”

“Because I felt like it.”

“I don’t feel like answering your irrelevant question. Next.”

No.

Nope.

I did not say any of those things. I turned red and sort of mumbled something like, oh, good question, I’ll have to think about it.

Do you want to know what I did next?

Reader, I THOUGHT ABOUT IT!!!!!

Christ on a Saltine cracker, I actually thought about it. I gave this person real estate in my writing mind. I considered how bad I was, how anti-feminist. I started Googling and found lots of opinions to back up the guy’s angry accusation about women writing as men as a means of pandering or finding acceptance in a man’s world.

Do you want to know what I did next?

I had a moment of radicalization, right?

I realized the guy was full of shit and that I should write whatever I wanted to write, right?

No.

Nope.

‘Fraid fuckin’ not.

I went on to take many more workshops over about fifteen years, Frankenstein-ing my stories to incorporate the most useless feedback imaginable. I sought out workshops at every turn, always feeling awful before, during, and after. I accumulated debt. I started behaving a little more unkindly, neurotically, and ego-centrically toward the people I loved.

I honestly did this for so long that I feel like I may have done irreparable damage to my writing mind and maybe even to some of my friendships. Why did I do that? Self-loathing? Masochism? Daddy issues? All that and more, friends!

There’s no wrap-up here. No takeaway. Just me, sipping my coffee as I type this, thinking about all the time I’ve wasted believing and nurturing and incorporating and internalizing the opinions of other people about a kind of work I used to like and love. All the time I could have been listening deeply to myself.

Love,

Amy