Yes, I actually left that workshop thinking that there’s this essay — good but not great — and if I take my machete to one section, it will be a lot better. I’m not attached to that stuff… I just don’t always know when it’s an artful digression or just wandering blather!

I agree with Roy you are way too hard on yourself, you must be good or you would not ask any questions. I contend if we could see where we went wrong by ourselves we would neither learn anything nor would we have the need therapists, chocolate or drinks. Keep the faith. Your friends have faith in you. Yup, my first post ever!

When it gets to the point where I’ve worked on something so long I don’t even know how to fix it – or can’t recall why it needed fixing in the first place – I send it out.

You don’t go to workshop to have people fawn over your work. (At least, *I* don’t. I have a mom for that.) You go to get the kick in the pants you need to point out flaws you can’t see anymore, and ask for spackle to help fix them.

You *are* ahead fo the game if you don’t have sentimental attachments to you word ingredients, though – I’m still working on distancing myself from that, and have just begun cannibalizing the good parts of bad pieces so they can shine. Sounds like you don’t have that pitfall, and that’s rare indeed. Good for you!

I’m still glad today is a warm, cuddly preconference where we’re doing some tiny in-class writes.

But y’all are sweet…

The writers’ program I was in back in college emphasized an almost complete subjugation of ego to “the work.” What it amounted to, in practice, was getting beaten up so regularly, and so ferociously, that you *had* to separate your ego from your writing… or go bonkers.

It is hard. But what the Beginner’s Mind reminds us is that hard is good. As one of my professors put it, “If you want ‘easy,’ go die. Easiest thing in the world, being dead.”