i feel...
very very discouraged.
writing isn't like it used to be for me. this is what i was afraid of when picking my passion as a major.
it's becoming an assignment; something i write in a planner, on my calendar, to add to my to do list. no longer is it something in my brain that won't let me go to sleep, so i naturally feed it a pot of coffee and an all-nighter session.
never in my life have i had an instructor give us fiction writing assignments without a fiction READING assignment paired with it. we are sent out into the world with notebooks, "handouts" with writing exercises, and homework as "a story where a character wants what the other doesn't want to give".
and then we go around the room and read aloud. no one gets my sick humor. everyone believes that i tried killing my father when i was 16. they all believe that i called my mother "the woman that claimed me as her dependent". apparently no one knows what FICTION means. they are all seriously staring.
i've spent the better part of my life worried that people are judging me. that's where my nervousness stems from. that has been under control and far away from my consciousness (except in rare spurts) as i can now differentiate between different energies people send out. i know it seems really "out there" but i can sense when people are uncomfortable, faking it, lying, sincere, evil. and the entire room was judgemental, fake and uncomfortable. i wanted to run away in the middle of every sentence. i started getting shakey and nervous, something i haven't done in YEARS while publicly speaking. all to hear that it was "good" and that i needed to do "this, this and this" to develop it into "something". this coming from the teacher that just made us read how we must not be afraid to write "shitty first drafts". the rest of the class went. no one said a word to the other readers. the teacher spoke, taking a break from shop talk most of the time to talk about her experiences that were mostly about her writing and how she developed stories and funny anecdotes about the south where she grew up. once the marine wrote about his close encounter with a noxious gas, she clapped loudly and told him not to "change a thing! it was perfect!" but definitely not fiction.
i feel really uninspired. i feel pressure. i feel like i need to go through a near-death experience and write exactly how it happened for me to get any kind of credit in that class. i feel like writing is a chore and that just makes me want to cry.
i guess i had to go through 5 amazing workshop professors to finally find one that's pretty damn shitty.
there's always my other writing classes, which make me smile so far.
now i'm putting on the coffee and waiting for sushi nite to start.