Did I do that?

Though it has been some time since my last workshop, it was still sort of scary to ask someone to unabashedly tell me what their impressions of me as a workshop participant were. I asked my past classmate over the phone to help me with this exercise and perhaps having them write something out would have been better, but I think the quick on her toes answers may have been more honest and less calculated. After explaining again that she could say whatever she wished and would not hurt my feelings, I let her speak and I jotted down notes and tried not to interrupt her by asking too many clarifying questions.

I will start with her affirmations of things that I had already been aware that I did with frequency in our workshop. The first was that I tend to talk a lot. She said it was not to the point of annoyance, but that it was noticeable that I often had a good amount to say about nearly every poem which was put in front of me. Part of this is because I usually have a lot to say about everything and the other part is that I despise the awkward silence. I will not say something for the sake of saying it, but if I had even had an inkling of an idea, I would give it when there was a long pause.

She continued with this train of thought by surprising me with the idea that I tended to hold a grudge. If someone consistently gave me bad feedback, I would often say less to them or become more harsh about their work. Similarly, if someone always had rosy comments for me I was more inclined to be more expressive and helpful. Tough this makes perfect sense, I hadn't caught myself doing this while I was in workshop. I was not purposefully withholding on anybody when I had a good idea, but maybe I was less likely to share a promising yet half developed notion if I felt the person being workshopped would not appreciate my commentary. Either way, I was rather disappointed with my past self for being so transparently juvenile. It would be difficult to include a rule which told people not to internalize negativity and that it will just eat away at the success of the group, but it does lend itself to the importance of the whole be respectful and thus respected mantra which should be followed in a creative sharing space.

Something I knew, but not quite to the point which my past classmate saw, was that I am a lover of adding punctuation to others work. I suppose this goes under the awful category of trying to change someone's piece to match your own aestheticism. While I have read good poems with little to no punctuation, I myself am a huge fan of it. Adding dashes, commas, or periods really helps me as a reader to interpret and understand the poem how it was meant to be written. That being said, I apparently like to suggest a lot of dashes and commas. This may be one of the hardest aspects of the workshop which causes a lot of tension. How do you give ideas across without putting your artistic style all over the other person's work? Very difficult indeed.

These were the main points of the conversation and the ones I thought to me most interesting and helpful. All of these ideas also seem to highlight an area which I could see as a struggle in teaching a creative writing workshop. How do you make it less of a competitive battlefield and more of a healthy and productive environment? Very important notions to consider.

This exercise was very thought-provoking in that it made me question any possible disconnects between how I saw myself as a workshopper and how others saw me. I look forward to discussing it further on Tuesday!