How many times in your life have you voiced a desire to do something, such as enroll in college, try out a new career, or take an art class, when the person to whom you are speaking shoots down the idea and throws in a bit of criticism on top to make sure you got it? Years ago when I shared with someone that I was toying with the idea of becoming a hair stylist, she said, "There's NO way you could handle standing on your feet for 8 hours a day!" When I talked about going to school to become a social worker, she said, "You can't even handle your own kids, let alone someone else's." Hmm, nice vote of confidence, there. During a phone company strike in the late 80's, I shared with someone else that I was working temporarily as a waitress so I could still pay my bills. Instead of congratulating me for my resourcefulness and ambition, she said I was "too slow" to be a waitress. Unfortunately, I believed what these people told me, and instead of proving them wrong, I never did anything to pursue my goals.
Over the years, I have been forced to build a filter in my mind. It has taken a long time, but now when I hear criticism, I am able to pick and choose, accepting the good while leaving the rest behind. If I listen with an open mind and see the good in what the person is saying, I accept it and make changes. But if I can tell they have no idea what they're talking about, I dismiss it and continue what I'm doing without letting pride or stubbornness be my downfall.
Recently, when I encountered some biased opinions at a new writers group, I was able to take what I knew as truth, and not let that person's comments bring me down or deflate me like so many times in the past.
One of our exercises was to define the following words: success, artist, writer, and speaker. Because I am the latter three shooting for the first one, I wrote down what my personal take was: Success is setting goals and reaching them, finishing projects that I've started, having a best-seller and going on book tours, that sort of thing. The facilitator announced I had one minute left to define the remaining three words, so I had to hurry: An artist is someone who creates works of art, a writer is someone who writes whether published or not, and a speaker is someone who speaks to audiences to educate and entertain using their own life experiences or research.
Obviously, we differ in opinion.
The facilitator said a writer, in her opinion, is someone who is published; otherwise, that person is "only" an ASPIRING writer. I beg to differ. Would she still be saying that if she hadn't gotten her one published book published? Just because a writer doesn't have anything published does NOT mean she is not a writer! If I sit down at my computer every day and work on my book, or even if I write once a week or once a month, I AM A WRITER!
Do my published magazine articles from the mid-90's count or are they too long ago that they're insignificant? How about the over 100 newspaper articles that have been published in YourHub and Fresh*Ink over the past two years? Or wait, maybe they don't count because I didn't get paid for them. What about winning two Journalist of the Year Awards in 2008--do those make me a writer? Or do they not count because it was "only" citizen journalism? Do the gift certificates I won substantiate me as a writer because they were enough to buy a new camera? Or do they not count because they weren't "real money"?
Bottom line is, she's a writer snob.
The second disagreement I had with the facilitator is about critique groups. She only wanted to be in one if all the writers were already published and knew what they were doing because she doesn't have time to "babysit" other inexperienced (read: unpublished) writers (getting a book published sure changes a person, doesn't it?). Unless, for example, there were 6 in the group, 5 of whom were published/established writers, and the sixth one was their "mascot." (Yup, that's the term she used--makes it sound like a football team or charity case.) The sixth person would be their "project," someone the others could take under their collective wings to show them the ropes. Thanks, but don't do me any favors--sure, I could benefit from a mentor, but don't pity or make an example out of me.
Don't get me wrong ... there are a lot of writers out there who don't know the basics of grammar, punctuation, verb agreement, plot, tension, character development, etc. Most of these can be learned, and the best way to do that is through college classes, writers groups, or writing workshops and conferences, perhaps purchasing Strunk & White's Elements of Style, but even that "bible for writers" won't teach you everything you need to know. SPOGG is a great place to visit when stumped with "lay-lie" conundrums. And I agree: if a writer is so off-base with his or her basic writing skills that every manuscript page is nothing but red marks, then that individual needs to educate himself and not expect a critique group to spend all of its time teaching him what he should've learned in high school English class.
With the exception of two or three people in the critique groups of which I've been a part, they all had a good grasp of basic writing mechanics. What we do struggle with, and even if it's a PUBLISHED writer, is clarity, or better sentence structure, or perhaps rhythm, hence the need for a critique group. If everyone had to be a published writer in order to be in a critique group, then that somewhat defeats the purpose. And just because the writer is published doesn't mean they know what they're doing, which is another writer snob misconception.
The last thing that irked me about this facilitator was that she kept interrupting me. Several times I attempted to share my opinion or talk about a project, only to have her cut me off. Mild-mannered that I am, I shut my trap instead of causing a scene. On one occasion, she said, "Can you talk about that after the meeting? I really want to stay on task." Well, excuuuuuuuse me! It was a WRITING project I was talking about, after all! It was as if I didn't matter, like I was wasting my time being there because she only seemed to want to converse with the other PUBLISHED writer, who has a dozen or so published books but at least she's not a snob about it. Even if the other published writer rambled about something, SHE didn't get interrupted or put off like I did.
I hate writer snobs.
In the past, I would simply dump the group, probably not even take the time to explain to the facilitator why this group was not a good fit for me, or provide feedback about what worked and what didn't, and what could she do to be more accommodating or understanding at future meetings? She at least deserves an explanation, right? But this time, I'm going to use my passive-agressive behavior to blog about it and hope she "happens" to recognize herself in this post so that she'll change her ways by the time we meet again.
Seriously, though, I'll probably send her an e-mail with my concerns, and ask how we can work together to improve her shortfalls and change her snobbish attitude. Or is it me who's being the snob? Maybe I just have writer envy. Either way, clique-ish attitudes like hers can be the bubble burster for any aspiring writer. All they need is for one person to tell them they'll never be a writer, or tell them their writing is lame, or chastise them in front of a large group. That's enough to make anyone put away their novel, possibly missing out on the next bestseller. Who are we to judge, anyway?
Maybe I'll just save some time and send her a direct link to this post and tell her I didn't use her name in order to protect her privacy. Yeah, that'll go over really well.
Eighteen years ago when I first started this writing journey, I came across a quote, wrote it down on an index card, and still have it to this day hanging on the wall next to my desk: "Stop thinking of yourself as a wanna-be. Begin today telling yourself and others who you are: 'I am a writer.'" In fact, it was that quote that gave me the title of my blog. Regardless if I'm published or not, I Am a Writer. The quote has been instrumental in the "filtering" process I mentioned earlier: telling myself I'm a writer (or that I'm a good mother, an artist, a public speaker, a photographer, etc.) makes it true, and I'm not going to listen to anyone else's criticism or them telling me I'm not.
And neither should you.
