A couple of months ago, I attended the Nature of Words, which bills itself as Central Oregon’s premiere literary event. They’re underselling themselves. A number of the high profile writers involved deemed it the country’s best literary festival. Where does the truth lie? Like most things, probably somewhere in the middle. All I know is that I loved the experience of authors sharing their truths through their writing. At the gala dinner that capped off the event, poets, novelists and a journalist turned bestselling author read portions of their work. And in their spilled words, I recalled the fiction writer I used to be, the writer I was trying to be.
Writing criticism comes so easily, crumbling dreams like over-baked sugar cookies. Yes, that happened to me. During one of my creative writing classes at UC Santa Cruz, I had read my latest short story aloud. As the daughter of an acclaimed journalist, I had been trying to find my voice. My voice. Perhaps afraid to look wide, I focused on the kind of detail that actually gives life to words on a page. My professor, himself the offspring of a famous writer, didn’t see it that way. After my fellow students had reacted to my prose, he looked at me. “It’s very nice,” he said. “But so what.”
He didn’t know that his words would haunt me, his student, for the next three decades. He didn’t know that they would squash a dream that I have yet to revive. But he should have.
So I’m careful with my writing criticism when dealing with others—and most especially when dealing with other writers. I’m always truthful, but I find ways to share my truth with my clients without shattering theirs. My job as a writing coach is to help people pursue their writing dreams rather than sidelining them. I wish my professor all those years ago had felt the same way.
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