Recovery

[float_on_alright]

In the pages I wrote last night that were full of stuff just too personal… to painful to post publicly, I wrote a lot about the issues I’ve had since I went to that “workshop” at DragonCon. I was expecting writing advice, some guidance about the business, and some minor feedback. What I got was some advice about the “business of writing,” five minutes of writing advice, and a cruel session of criticism in front of 17 other people that left me feeling ashamed, embarrassed, and utterly hopeless about my writing. I’ve talked about it some, but I haven’t recovered from it. Every time I go to write I think about that workshop and the emotions from that moment come flooding back and any spark of creativity I felt abandons me. 

Throwing myself into my new job, which I enjoy immensely but is also pretty tiring since I’ve been learning a lot of new things and taking on a ton of new responsibilities, has been a great excuse for avoiding dealing with the issues that came up because of that workshop and what I’m dealing with. I think I’ve been subconsciously thinking that if I just pushed the workshop from my mind and waited until there was more distance between me and the experience that it wouldn’t hurt as much and I’d be able to move on. But, like many problems in life, my problems with the experience didn’t go away just because I ignored them. Surprise, surprise. 

Anyway, I told myself last week that I would get back into “The Artist’s Way” because there had already been a few things early on in the book about coping with people who really hurt you in regards to your creativity and recovering and I figured there might be more. And if there wasn’t, I could go back to some of the early chapters and tasks after I finished the book. So today I started Chapter 8, “Recovering a Sense of Strength” which is all about recovering after you’ve had a loss artistically—if something isn’t received well or what have you. It’s about how artists’ wounds are deemed “silly” or “foolish” and so we never actually deal with the wound and in turn it doesn’t heal.

If only I’d picked up this book again weeks ago like I thought about doing over and over again I’d probably be in a much better place writing wise. I guess I should just be thankful that I have picked it up now and haven’t waited another few months (or years). 

I’d been trying to excuse what that lady did and said and how she handled her “classroom” and I kept telling myself I was being silly about the whole thing and that I needed to be tougher because criticism comes with the territory etc. But last night I allowed myself to be angry about the way she treated almost all of us in that workshop and the way she acted so superior, not just as a writer but as a person, to all of us. I’d I’ll give you that most of us were not great writers and that we have a lot of work to do but instead of fostering a love of writing and a passion for practicing, she tore people down over and over. It was not okay how she treated people and it is not okay how she runs her class. 

But the book gave me permission to be sad, to be really hurt about the way she treated me and nearly everyone else in the room (there was like one person’s story she liked). I really mourned tonight. I doubt it will be the last time that I mourn, but I think it will be easier to write now going forward. I think I’ll be able to start healing and eventually start growing again now and for that I’m excited and hopeful.