Chop Shop

After having two workshops in my fiction writing class, I now hate my fiction writing class.

I was corresponding with one of my classmates about it and I told him that I feel like an utter failure as a writer after our class rips up my work. He tried to tell me that it was just the nature of workshops, but I held to the belief that it's not. I've had several classes where we've workshopped writing and they've always helped me to see the flaws in my writing and turn my work into a better product.

This class is not like that. It feels to me that sometimes it's insecurity that's driving the students' harshness and lack of interest in helping out a fellow writer, but I'm not sure if that's what it is. Maybe they just aren't very experienced writers. The professor I really don't get though. He seldom gives actual positive feedback. And I don't think he's praised anything of mine yet. He should know that beginning writers need a little encouragement and that doesn't mean lying to them. Just let them know they don't suck at writing.

This is a rant, I know. And it sounds very much like I'm blaming everyone but myself, but I'm not trying to, really. I'm just trying to make sense of such a bad experience in a class that's about producing the type of writing I love. It's been disappointing to me, but I'm very thankful I have my feature writing class this semester. Workshops there have helped me produce writing that's suitable for mass media and has been printed in a newspaper. I've learned a lot and gained so much confidence from that class.

It's been hard for me to get to the revisions I have to make on my fiction story. I appreciated the suggestions I got, but I just don't feel motivated to produce more writing for fiction class. The writing is not satisfying at all. I don't like the feeling of putting so much effort into telling a story and then getting nothing from the reader but criticism and disappointment. I know what being a writer means; it means often hearing that someone doesn't like what you wrote. There is usually some safety among other writers, though, and I don't feel that at all with the fiction class.