This month I want to talk about something that everybody struggles with-the thing which is most important for creative types to overcome-silencing the inner critic.

I think that is the biggest obstacle toward creating new material.  I bring this up because one of my students, "Jane," a life-long painter, was very excited to show her writing with a poet friend of hers.  The poet friend, a long time writer, told her that she was too old to pick up writing as a craft and that her work was no good.  Then, this so-called "friend" began discrediting the beautiful work that Jane had done over the past year and a half that she had been studying writing. She also told Jane that she herself had been working hard at being a poet for 25+ years and who did Jane think she was waltzing in and trying to write?  Didn't she know that she had chosen one of the hardest things in the world to master-creating true literature? Oh please.  Hold on while I say that again, P-L-Ease!

If you are a writer long enough, I'm sure you have had a similar experience with somebody, maybe even a friend or loved one, maybe even another writer, teacher, or editor, telling you that you are not a real writer or dismissing you or excluding you in some horrible little way. Don't let it get you down. Don't let it stifle you. Don't let it silence you. It says more about them than it does about you.   

Once a friend of mine invited me to her creative writing workshop where two literary agents were visiting that night. The agents asked us all to bring in the first page of our novels. They gave comments to each person in order.  When it got to mine, which broke with literary convention, but was compelling, the literary agents threw a fit. They hated my piece. Not only did they hate it, but they acted like I personally offended them for throwing a few words my mother tongue, Greek, on the first page.  A man turned around with a twisted face and acted like I didn't know how to write in English. 

They took so much time attacking and criticizing my story, which broke the "rules" that they ran out of time to go over any other piece in the class after mine.  At the end of the class, a group of people from multicultural backgrounds came up to me and gushed about how they loved my piece. One man told me that he wanted to read the rest and not to listen to the literary agents' criticisms. As I was leaving, the literary agents saw the people's interest and slipped me their card. Why was I such a lightening rod for controversy?

As an artist, sometimes you are going to piss people off.  That's okay. That's part of it.  But if you take risks, you will find that there are other people who might embrace you.

In my case, if I had been less experienced in my craft, I would have likely wilted under the pressure and gone and hidden under a rock.  But, I learned something that takes some of the sting out of such narcissistic wounds. People who are blocked by their own inner critic often feel a strong desire to silence others who are making art from their own true voice.

"Not surprisingly," writes Cameron, "the most poisonous playmates for us as recovering creatives are people whose creativity is still blocked. Our recovery threatens them."

I think it's important to distinguish that I am not saying that you shouldn't take in and implement feedback or to ignore edits, but part of gaining mastery in your craft as a writer is developing a filter to trap the poisons and the silt of other blocked creatives that could pull you into the dark cold place of fear and self doubt. Another mark of a master craftsman is to have the courage to face down your own work and do the edits the work needs.

If you are looking for a supportive environment to join of writers in the midst of their creative process, Jack Grapes Method Writing Program--offered in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco may be for you. 

San Francisco Method Writing classes are held at the Emerald Tablet three times a year. The class is based on process not product. Everything we generate within the class is new material. The class is a range of ages, disciplines and experience levels. There are absolute beginners all the way to seasoned pros. We are having a reading on November 17 at 5pm at the Emerald Tablet Art Gallery and Creativity Salon.  Come check us out. Tell your angsty writer friends. We are a safe space for all things creative and an incubator for new work and process.

As artists, we need to stop surrounding ourselves with people who degrade us because deep down we may secretly believe that they could be right and that is the most crippling fear of all. Instead, dear artists, surround yourselves with people who affirm you and the first step to that is to join a community-or a new community. If your current group isn't working, if it's full of spoilers, or if it's just you and the cat and the clock ticking, it could be time to make a meaningful change.  

 Happy Writing,

Alexandra Kostoulas

Writer and Instructor

Jack Grapes METHOD WRITING Program in SF

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  Poem written for the workshop set to video. By Dennis Estrada.

Writing the City

 

 

Communion  

-Dennis Estrada

 

1.  Just weeks before he is to make his first Holy Communion, he tells his mother he can't swallow the white wafer that the priest places on his tongue when he kneels at the bronze altar rail. The boy and his classmates spend many hours in church, away from the school room with its forty-five small wooden desks and waxed linoleum floors, rehearsing. All of them kneeling and standing in unison as Sister Helen sounds the wooden clicker. Click. Genuflect. Click. Click. Stand.

 

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