So, not to get overly emotional about it, but I have felt very discouraged with my writing journey. This blog was started during a creative writing class, and I have worked pretty hard to keep up with it, maybe not with daily entries, but with ones that chronicle where I am in the writing process. My journey has been filled with ups and downs, from the joy of creating to the frustration of criticism, and I want to share these experiences with you.
I have been in an MFA program this fall at a university in Kansas, and I am not quite ready to name which one. At the start of the semester, I felt very good about my writing since I had been writing since before I could hold a pencil. I used to dictate poems to my Great-Grandmother, who would then write them down for me. I lost a love for poetry in the last few years, but I am trying to find my way back to it. As the semester progressed, one teacher continued to stress things like I shouldn't be working and going to school, as if anyone beyond the wealthy could not work and go to school. He would say things like he was worried about me or my ability, and it struck me as if he had no clue who I was. He was taking away my love for the art of writing, and it was my daughter who spoke up and said enough was enough.
See, my daughter knows I used to draw and loved it, but I had one really negative experience in an art class in high school. I had teacher just berate me for how "poor" my art was, he even went so far as to call it trash. I developed a mental block for drawing and have struggled with it since that class. I can paint, but I do not actually do sketches when I used to draw all the time. I even remember the piece he was critical of, which was of a rose I had drawn as a still life. The rose was wilting and dying on my kitchen table, so the shadows weren't where the teacher thought they should be; he had never been in my home, nor had he seen the rose. It was the first rose ever given to me by a boy, and I drew it because I loved it, and he took that feeling of joy from me with his critical way of speaking. However, my daughter's intervention was a turning point. Her support and understanding helped me to see that I should not let one person's negativity define my love for writing and drawing.
I have talked with a number of friends about what happened in the class and realize that, as I have always said, there is elitism within English'/literature programs. It is one of those things that is hard to overcome and is not in all programs, but it seems to be in many of them. I feel better having talked with friends and family about the experience I had with this one teacher. Maybe it is because I have never received an F on a piece of writing before, or perhaps it was just because I found him to be very unprofessional; I just couldn't continue with the class and did something I had only done once before; I withdrew from the class.
I want to assure you that I am not giving up on writing. I refuse to let one negative experience define my future. Instead, it has reignited my passion to write the novel I've always talked about. This time, I'm determined to be the person who writes not just for fun, but to share their work with the world.
