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September 11, 2007

And So It Begins

As every aspiring writer must do at some point during their career-I finally attended a writers workshop, facilitated by a real life editor. It was fucking brutal. Honestly, it was the most painful thing I've ever gone through. Tonight's workshop was the reason I don't like to read my work (or have other's read my work) in public.

I suppose I know why I've never been published. Apparantly, I'm a racist. Oh wait, before I begin, let me tell you how I ended up in the workshop in the first place.

It is a well known fact that I want to be published. Obviously, there's a reason I'm not being published so I decided to take the bull by the horns, bite the bullet-and do the thing I feared the most-attend some kind of workshop (preferably free) that would tell me what I was doing wrong. I've sent stuff out, most of which I consider to be pretty profound and provocative. Controversy sells and I thought I was pretty good at selling controversy...Hmm...not so much.

Anyway-I was asked to submit a piece of writing for a workshop being held by mediabistro-for those of you who don't know, mediabistro is a "bistro" a smorgasboard of jouranalists and media professionals offering courses, seminars, parties and networking and learning opportunities for those who want to embark upon a career in writing. Well, of course I do and you know I want to be a successful writer. So, I notice this one day workshop on personal essay writing being offered in New York City, for 125 bucks-and I'm thinking-SWEET! It's one day for like three hours-I can dig that.

Now, in order to get into the class-which only admits 10 people, you have to submit a writing sample and say a few words about why you want to be in the course. I figured that my peice, entitled "Testimonial of an Ascended Black Woman,"which is also on this blog- must have been half-way decent because I was accepted into the class. So, I got a nice little ego boost, which is good because so far, the only people to be truly impressed by my writing are my friends and family-not that their opinions don't matter but I need some brutal honesty.

And that is exactly what I got. It was a little embarrassing because every other members of the group received encouragement, praise and "nice" constructive criticis. When it came time to read my peice-the instructor basically called me a racist and nary a person wanted to touch my topic. My intial reaction was to become defensive. I wasn't comfortable with this white woman telling me-a Black woman-that I was racist against Black people. I didn't know how my peice could be construed as racism when I'm a black person writing about other black people.

I understand that I need constructive criticism but I felt like she was attacking my personal opinion. After all, this was a personal essay writing course.

After I picked my pride off the floor and dusted it off- I realized what she was trying to tell me. I need to write with less emotion and rage but talk more about my personal experience-i.e. the conflict I feel about being a Black woman forced to deal with the not so nice representations of "Blackness" I see around me and have to deal with. For example, when I'm in criminal court dealing with young Black defendants who are so far removed from where I come from and what I stand for, it enrages me. I need to focus on why I become enraged-instead of attacking the source of my rage.

As I continue to examine my feelings about being "Black" (and this is all coming to me as I write through my emotions) I realized that maybe I need to look into my own biases. Maybe I am a little bit racist. Why is that? Why do I feel so responsible for the bad apples in the Black bunch? When, as I've said before whites don't feel responsible for theirs? Is it simply a matter of racism? Or is there some self loathing going on here?

I just spoke to a good friend of mine-who happens to be Italian. She is also an Assistant District Attorney. We were having a conversation about racism and I started ragging on Black people-which as of last night, and re-reading my peice, I notice I tend to do a lot. I mentioned in the piece that other races do not address one another by derogatory terms in public-and she told me that it wasn't true-Italians do refer to themselves by offensive terms as well-and then when I was going to talk about my experience in criminal court and the fact that most of the defendants are young Black men-she quietly reminded me that if we go to a different court part-let's say Rackets for example-a majority of the defendants there are white.

Touche. I obviously have some issues to work through-which I'm going to do now.

All in all the workshop was helpful-even though the instructor didn't give me the props I expected to hear-but it did give me the kick in the ass that I needed, besides-I know I'm a good writer. I just need to keep writing. Now-if only I could find the strength to read the comments made by the class...

I'll keep you posted. One day I'll be published. You'll see!

Posted by renee at 12:24 AM | Comments (1)