Dear writer,
Last week I mentioned a new book called Junk to Jewels and how its author, Georgette Beck, was a member of WriteByNight's first-ever writing workshop, wayyyy back in 2009.
At the time, I was a fresh-nonfresh-faced youngoldster, and some of you won't be surprised to learn that I had a touch of imposter syndrome during those early days of WriteByNight.
I had just dropped out of grad school, had never really
published anything, and was on the editorial staff of a magazine that, while awesome, and dear to me, was barely a step above unknown.
Who the hell was I to lead a whole-ass workshop?
Lucky for me, WBN's co-founder, Justine, took the reins and did about 95% of the talking and the work, leaving me free to sit there like a mute lump of poo. (As opposed to... a chatty lump of poo?)
But with each passing week it became clearer that the workshop members
wanted and expected me to contribute more.
And it became clearer to me that I was dealing with some sort of performance anxiety. On the rare occasions I did speak up, I could hear the shakiness in my voice, could feel the blood rushing to my face. It was a problem.
So how did I solve it?
Well, I didn't. Not really. But also: booze.
The workshop began at 6 p.m. and was about a five-minute walk from the workplace I left at 5:30. During that free half hour, I would buy a couple of few mini bottles of whatever liquor I was in the mood for and slug 'em down before the workshop kicked off.
It helped, to some degree. I began to feel slightly more comfortable; I began to talk slightly more.
But I'd feel like shit physically. It's not a great idea to slam a bunch of alcohol within about ten minutes and then stop drinking.
And I felt like shit psychically. I was embarrassed that I needed a substance in order to relax me enough to talk about short stories, my supposed bailiwick. And that people were paying money for that.
Why am I sharing this story? Aside from the fact that looking at the news every single day makes me want to get trash-drunk?
Thinking about that first workshop reminded me that we asked all participants to answer a writing prompt and then come to the first session ready to read it out loud. The
prompt:
Write about your most shameful experience.
It was a doozy of an ask. It's already nerve-wracking enough to meet a bunch of
new writers and to have to read something aloud. Now on top of that, imagine that the thing you're reading aloud reveals your deepest, darkest moment to a group of thirteen strangers.
But we were impressed by the writers' responses. Every one of them took it seriously and went all-in. And in those few
minutes, we went from fourteen strangers to a gathering of intimates.
It was awesome. So awesome that we used that exercise for every subsequent workshop.
Now, drinking a little tequila before a class is definitely not my most shameful moment. It's not even top 10 50 100. This email isn't the right context for sharing mine.
But I do invite you to answer the prompt, because it's a really good one. Dig deep, see what
happens. I won't make you read it aloud! In fact, nobody ever has to even see it.
Though if you do want to share, I invite you to do that. You'll get no judgment from me. I won't even respond, if you don't want me to.
