I’m a… Fill-in-the-Blank

Hi class:

We as writers turn the microscope on our surroundings all the time. We eavesdrop on a conversation one table over, we watch the way light comes into the room at a certain time of day, and we do this so that we, too, may communicate something true. I think I’ve grown so accustomed to my role as the observer, that I have not directed the microscope on my role as a reader and/or workshopper of peers’ work. This is why it was fascinating for us to self-assign our workshop characters and, in part, why I was challenged to do so without resorting to a grab-bag characterization. At times, I talk too much. At times, not enough. At times, I find myself hunting for the kindest thing to say about a piece I didn’t particularly enjoy...and sometimes I feel like I’m the only person in the room who didn’t enjoy it. At other times, I feel like I’m the only one who did. I’m sure we all relate to the variety and any number of hats we might feel summoned to don.

Inspired by this week’s blog topic, I turned to a peer from one of my fiction workshops here at Mills. Disclaimer: While I did prompt him from the get-go to be as honest as possible, we share a mutual respect for one another’s work and contributions to class. He’s a perceptive voice in workshop and has seen things in my characters at a level even I have not. And I thought he might do the same with MY character. As I said, Gina and Brenda, who have both shared a workshop with me, are welcome to chime in if they disagree or would like to add anything! Just because self-awareness may be a bit hazy doesn’t mean I’m not curious to know how I might improve or otherwise better my contributions to the class.

Here is what I was told about my role in workshop:

“When I have had the opportunity to observe Jennifer Massoni in a real graduate school fiction workshop, I have found that her biggest strength lies in her ability to provide for the author a well developed dual approach to criticism. Jennifer is able to critique a text from a critical perspective, but she is also able to separate that from her emotional response, and then to give an isolated emotional response, and within this ability to separate these often conflated approaches to criticism, she provides a candid response from two very important angles from which an author must view his own text. What is unique about this critical approach is that the author can truly isolate these two different responses, because Jennifer herself has no problem isolating them.

Jennifer is definitely the "line editor" 'extraordinaire' of any workshop. She understands pacing, sentence structure, the rules and styles of grammar, and syntax at an expert level, and her line editing is remarkably helpful in producing a fluent text that will be accessible by anyone familiar with reading literature. Unless a work is dead-set on challenging its readers in a "Faulkner" approach to writing, Jennifer is able to help a reader to understand why her changes are not necessary, but rather most conducive to helping a text gain accessibility--again, because of her proficiency in empathy and critical analysis, she is able to reach a writer without bruising their ego.

Jennifer is stronger at written criticism than she is at oral criticism, and I think this is the effect of her deep rooted human nature that desires to not offend anyone, but instead to encourage and to coach her peers to produce their best work. When she isn't effected by her empathetic response to how a writer is reacting to oral criticism, on the spot, I think it's easier for her to express her most 'possibly devastating' observations, vis-a-vis written criticism. But given her candor and her obvious goal of wanting to provide only assistance and help to the writer, I think her written criticism is still erring on the side of caution. The current pedagogy in most universities is to "never harm the student" and Jennifer is a model teacher in this regard. Jennifer is not afraid to speak her mind, to be the only person in the class defending a theory, a character, or what she believes to be the author's intent, but she is equally disinterested in making a point, just to make a point and be heard. She will patiently wait her turn, and respect a writer's limitations in accepting criticism, and she is therefore a model workshop student.”

Okay, I’m supremely uncomfortable accepting THIS much of the microscope and sharing praise. I think it’s why I’m still adjusting to the blog format, which is new to me, and this public, though selective, airing of my thoughts or others’ thoughts about me.

Based on this characterization, I would name myself the Cautious Critic of workshop (unless Jackie can come up with a better title!) What I can deliver in written analysis or critique is perhaps held back during the workshop roundtable. This is true—I’m more comfortable with a pen, almost always. From journaling (and way too much introspection) during high school and college, I often figured out my emotions or reactions best upon reflection. I’ve tried to since reverse this order of operations, but certainly think my “pen-first/voice-second” approach surfaces in peer review.

I would hope to never devastate, with my pen or voice. As Elmaz said in class the other day, “the damaging can destroy you, but the positive can pick you up and make you do more.” So I’m not going to work to completely slash “Cautious” from this title, though I do think I should work on not holding back, if that’s the impression I’m giving. I spend quite a bit of time with my peers’ submissions each week, reading them over, typing up comments, and yes, line-editing quite a bit (it’s a hazard of the job). So I hope that effort comes across not as timidity but as empathy, as it’s well intentioned.

Moving forward as a potential workshop leader, I think this exercise was helpful in understanding how students think of themselves versus how they are perceived. In an environment, such as a workshop, built on the premise that 12 opinions are invited to speak their minds, tensions are bound to run high, feelings to be bruised (if not devastated) just as they can be lifted and reassured.

I recall a workshop leader once who hardly replied to something I had submitted—and THAT devastated me. I just couldn’t understand how, as the teacher, she couldn’t give at least the same effort as her students. As we’ve said, you never know what’s going on in another’s life, but I was destroyed by what wasn’t said, perhaps even more than what might have been as it was all left to my imagination. Did she really hate it? Was she so confused she couldn’t analyze it? Was my work a waste of her time? Among other overly sensitive anxieties. Ultimately, she wrote me later with her feedback, and I felt encouraged again. But it’s what stuck with me, and I’ve tried to convey that whether or not my feedback will prove the most helpful, I’ve at least “shown up” as Elizabeth Gilbert might say of the critic as well as the creator.

Thanks,
Jennifer