Flipping the Tables on My Fear

Engage’s Challenge on ‘Fear Kills Dreams’ dredges up memories of a crushing moment in my early writing life

One story. One critique. One broken heart. That’s all it took to crush this gal.

It would take another twenty-five-plus years before I would try to write again.

It was a college creative writing class that killed my dreams. Or, more precisely, the fellow students in the class. They held the dagger that they collectively thrust into my heart.

I was 20-years old and still pretty much afraid of my own shadow. I didn’t have any big college dreams. I had a job and my first apartment. It was all about survival. But I did have a $100 scholarship from high school that I could use to apply towards tuition at any college.

There was a junior college in Azusa, near my apartment. The scholarship was enough to pay for three classes. After that I was on my own. Just stepping out into the college world, away from my safe little zone was one of the hardest things I’d done up until then.

Don’t even ask me now why I chose these three classes: creative writing, guitar, and basic auto repair. What an odd combination. Like I said, don’t ask, because I wouldn’t have an answer to give you.

Don’t ask about the guitar class either. That one didn’t go too far. I started some basics on learning to strum Hotel California, but never finished the class and never did learn how to play the guitar.

The auto repair class was the only one of the three that I finished. Which is laughable, because just the thought of me out there trying to give my car a tune-up sends me into hysterical (maniacal) laughter. Ha! I did learn how to change a tire, which I suppose is a plus. And I have done an oil change or two. (Probably two tops.) And that’s my extent of automobile tune up knowledge now. Although, while I’m in the shop talking to the mechanics, I can do the ‘smile and nod’ thing pretty well. I nod and agree and pretend like I know what they’re talking about. (I don’t think I have them fooled though.)

The creative writing class though is the one that devastated me.

We were to write our first short story and bring it to class. Then we’d read our stories and share our thoughts with one another.

I remember feeling so proud of myself and the story I wrote.

But my pride died that day. Along with my future as a writer — at least for many years.

I don’t recall the story. I don’t remember the details of the day. It seems that only 2–3 others, all guys, sat around the table critiquing my story. I’m sure the class must have been larger, so the teacher probably broke us up into smaller groups.

The words they spoke are not even in my memory base. But the pain they left as they ripped my heart out of my chest, threw it on the floor, and proceeded to trample it in front of me still remains.

I never went back to class.

It would be another twenty or twenty-five years before I’d attempt any writing again.

Now looking back, with a few years wisdom and growth under my belt, I can see that possibly what I was told during that critique is no worse than any other unpleasant critique I’ve gotten over the years in different writing groups.

Most writing groups try to cushion the bad news part of their review with parts that they did like, softening the blow. Some people are better at doing that than others.

After being in three different writer’s groups over the past 15 years, I’ve developed a thicker skin. Some critiques can be hard on a writer’s tender ego. But with time and experience, and age and maturity, I got better at accepting less than stellar comments on my writing.

At twenty, I didn’t have that strength.

Years later, when I was 35 and in a less-than-happy marriage, I started going to a counselor. Dr. Sinor encouraged me to start journaling. I remember more than once she told me, “You are a writer.”

“Oh, no!” I’d counter back. “I am certainly not a writer.”

She kept insisting. “You are a writer,” she repeated often.

She got me through that difficult year or two, when my unhappy marriage turned to divorce. I kept journaling. But still had no desire ‘to write’. I’d already heard what others thought about my writing. The fear instilled in my heart all those years ago remained, keeping me shackled and unable to think of even penning any words on paper for pleasure or enjoyment.

Until about ten years later.

My Grandma Jones died. And I wanted to tell her story. I knew all the family tales I’d heard through the years of her growing up. How she was the moonshiner’s daughter and fell in love with the charming runner, the handsome young man driving down from Missouri into Arkansas to pick up the ‘shine and take it back to Missouri. Their love remained until the end of their lives, which included their legacy of seven children in this world, which led to me.

I wanted to write Grandma’s story.

And there’s only one way someone can do that.

You have to write.

This girl had to learn to take a deep breath, suck it up, and learn.

And here we are.

Now I wander about in Medium-ville, writing every day, and meeting friends here who are so supportive and encouraging — not a bit like the ones I encountered in that first creative writing class.

Oh, every now and then I look at something I wrote and cringe. Yuck, I think, That sucks. And then I kill a paragraph or two, rewrite the opening, or sometimes kill the whole document. But I keep going. I keep writing. Keystroke after keystroke. I keep plugging away. I keep dreaming.

Fears can kill dreams.

But sometimes the reverse is true, and dreams can kill fears.