Workshop: Writing 2

I know the writing workshop was over a week ago, but I figure it would be good to respond to it anyhow.

I don't know why I was afraid of criticism. When people came to review my pieces, I found that I actually came to crave criticism. I wanted as much criticism as possible, so I could know everything was wrong. I was flattered by the compliments, but in the back of my head I was screaming "Tell me what's wrong!"

When Alex gave his critiques, I came to a strange sort of realization.

Although I had gone in believing that I wrote a piece of creative non-fiction, I began to feel like I had instead created some sort of psychological profile of myself. My writing was an explanation of my feelings and my inner conflicts. It was so honest, I don't feel particularly comfortable talking about it openly, so I'm sorry if this blog post is super vague.

Now, it's obvious my art is much about myself. All art is autobiographical. Especially creative non-fiction, which is quite literally, autobiographical art.

The thing is, when I received critique for my writing, I felt like I was receiving some sort of therapy. It's hard to describe. Somehow, the criticisms that Alex offered for my writing were indirectly words of advice for how I should handle my dilemmas.

For example, he said that I needed to keep my feelings consistant throughout the story. In my piece, I had a dichotomy between pitying and revering the people I interacted with. I wanted to believe that I had respected my friends throughout my piece. In truth, I had pitied them. It was clearly evident in my writing, but I did not realize it, because I never admitted it to myself. I can lie, but my writing can't. This new perspective not only changed my outlook on my writing, but also it changed my outlook on my life and my choices. Perhaps I have been too subjective towards myself, and that clouds my judgment.

An important aspect of creative non-fiction is to recognize that your story took place in the past, and in that past, you had different feelings than you do now. You were likely more foolish then. This makes you reluctant to be honest in your writing, because you don't want to admit that you were once immature, or wrong.

What can help you cope with your past humiliations is to realize that you are a different person now. You are more knowledgable than you were then. If you admit that, you can move on.

I hope to add a reflection to my piece in order to cope with these feelings. Even if I don't end up including it, I will feel a lot better know that I was honest to my feelings at the time and honest to my feelings now.

And maybe if I can develop a mature view on the situation, I will be able to decipher it more effectively and fix some of my issues.