I finally did it. I committed to a seven week creative writing course, sacrificing my Thursday nights shift to attend the 90-minute class in Brooklyn. How did I feel about it, in the days leading up to it? It was weird. I didn't really feel much. I was trying to not, in order to avoid things like nerves or having a wall up. I was...open, if you will, to whatever it might bring.
So, how did my first class go?
This might sum it up nicely: I came home and stress-ate carbs for an hour, while watching “The Keepers”, a docu-series about a murdered nun, to help take my mind off things, until I passed out on the couch.
I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty scarred when it comes to being open with my artistic creations I don’t feel confident in. Actually, generally speaking, I will not put myself out there at all, if I don’t feel confident. I’ve always been that way, whether it’s at a new job, or a new school, or a house party where I don’t know anyone while knowing all too well, how little I fit in. I will be quiet, observe, glean what I can, bitterly and inwardly admire those who are clearly more advanced and better than I am, and sit back until I feel ready and sure enough in myself to step up, and be heard. Which is sometimes, sadly, never.
At this rate, my time to shine’s gonna be my literal deathbed confession.
And knowing that fills me with a rapid, suffocating, sense of panic.
After I made the choice to stop pursuing an opera career, part of it was because I really thought writing was it for me. Nothing else I’d ever done came as naturally. I was never able to execute any other creative outlet as honestly and openly and even…powerfully, as I was with the written word. It was something I couldn’t stay away from, even if I tried, and where all other aspects of my life waxed and waned, writing was a constant. It was the one thing that could actually, literally, make my day. More than a crush saying they liked me back, more than cooking the best thing I ever cooked, more than making a shit ton of money in a shift.
And now I’m in this class, confused, deflated, humbled, and sad. Because…wow.
I’m pretty shit at this.
And that wasn’t the lesson I needed.
I am, probably more so than anyone else is towards me, extremely hard on and critical of myself. It’s a detriment, in many ways, because it stops me, more often than not, from pursuing something that even mildly interests me. I am so cautious about potential failure, of looking bad, of not being my best, that I don’t even try. It’s kept from committing to travel, moves, job changes, etc., and I’m left in this place where not much about me has changed. And in the mildly glaring lights of the classroom last night, I became painfully aware of how very stuck I am, of how very unevolved and uninteresting. It’s the mirror I tend to avoid, because it’s the mirror I polish with one eye closed.
And man, it sucked.
Yes, sure, as I write this, the hormones are raging. Which is pretty sweet; it’s a 7 week course, so it should conclude in a nice full cycle, if you will. But I don’t know, I don’t think it’s the hormones that are making me feel sad. I think it’s the notion that the one thing that makes me happy, the way opera used to, could be the one thing to break my heart more than anything else ever will – again.
It’s a hard exercise, to look at yourself under an even more critical lens than you already do. Like, dude, I know I got enough shortcomings to deal with, like, really? We gotta pile on even more? The irony is, this class is, eye-rollingly so at times, a “Safe Space” class. I mean it. No criticisms, no negative feedback, only positive and glowing responses allowed. For the entirety of the course.
And like, that’s cool, I guess, but how am I supposed to grow? Like this? Like sitting here, in the quiet corner, hearing how great the other writers are as they read aloud, while I look down at the filled page in my notebook with distaste and disappointment in myself? Like confirming what I already feared: that my fiction is hokey and mediocre and wandering, at best? Man, I don’t want my fellow classmates to sift through the pile of whatever shit writing prompt exercise I managed to eke out, and extract the one mildly-encouraging piece of feedback they might have. I don’t want them to affirm my shittiness, either; I want answers, god damn it! I want to know if what I’m attempting to do – writing fiction – is something I’m capable of. If stories don’t whirl around my mind at Stephen King speed, should I be trying at all? If my writing is somewhat…pedestrian, elementary, unrefined, should I even be here? If fiction doesn’t come as easily to me as, say, writing about my sex life and gender roles does, should I maybe not be writing fiction?
Self-doubt is an admitted plague within me, and honestly…I don’t want to have to resort to fucking carbs and true crime documentaries to provide me reprieve. I want to actually grow; will this class help with that?
I don’t know. I texted a buddy after, who also writes, who’s taken many a writing class, and he gave me a piece of great advice: “Don’t compare yourself to others. Compare yourself to you, now, to you in seven weeks from now.” That was pretty great. Not enough to keep me going back, but pretty great. No, I think my documenting my experience after each class will be the thing. Hold me accountable, make sure I go, so I can write some shitty prompt exercises, feel terrible about myself, and bike home.
Seven weeks, seven posts, seven nights of overeating and tears.
Let’s do it.
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