Callous

I'm working on developing a thicker skin. Not literally, though you wouldn't know it from the pea-sized callus I have below the pinky finger on each hand. These are from drumming, and they're a good thing! They keep my hands from blistering from the friction of the drumsticks, exacerbated by my constantly sweating palms. Finally the calluses are in the "correct" place... before, I used to blister and callus around my thumbs and forefingers too, but those were a sign of improper grip. These calluses are a sign of protection -- even if they cause Cabana Boy to recoil in horror whenever he sweetly grabs my hand. Sorry, honey, I'll sand them down.

No, I mean a thicker emotional skin. I'm what's known as "overly-sensitive." Can't stand teasing, take everything too personally, blame myself for every bad thing that happens. Technically that makes me a "negative narcissist," but that's enough name-calling for one day. I need to toughen up.

I show signs of improvement. Last week, I got notification that a short play was not selected for a festival in New Orleans. (I had to rewrite that sentence... swapping "I" for "short play." "I" am not my writing.) I had a moment or two of, "oh, that's too bad. That would have been fun." I'd like to take more credit for my placid response, but really I was too busy stressing out about a work/career crisis that hit at the same time. My panic  doesn't like to multi-task.

Last night, I a portion of my new play got critiqued. I have learned, after many, many years of writing classes and writing groups, that workshop/critique groups are highly subjective. The work is never presented in the ideal setting (usually a cold reading against type with no staging) and those critiquing you may not be your ideal audience (um, does anyone know of a playwriting group for the pre-AARP in SoFla? Maybe I should start one...). There were some extremely negative responses. I think people started to feel bad for me.

You know what? I didn't feel bad for me. In fact, I played kind of a mean trick on my audience. I deliberately gave them the middle portion of the play, the part with very little exposition or character development, because I needed guidance on the overall shape and tone of the piece. Most importantly, I needed to hear the piece out loud. I did not want to get bogged down with comments like "Why isn't your 30-year old character married?" or "Grown women don't eat cupcakes!" Yes, that's actual feedback I've received in writing groups, but not last night -- I just threw that in there for effect. I've learned that if I want these workshops to be useful to me, I need to decide ahead of time what I want to get out of them, and determine how to best get it.

I did get useful feedback, mostly from the people who understand how to give useful feedback. Information about verb tense/action, and guidance on where to cut and where to build. The other thing I got, almost from every single person was "You write beautifully." That was usually preceded by "I have no idea what you've just presented." Afterwards, more people came up to me: "You have such respect for the English language!" and "You put your words together with such care!"

In fact, glowing praise for my talent was not the feedback I had wanted to elicit, but it sure was nice to hear!