The following is my first journal entry for my Nonfiction Prose course. It is a response to the essay, "Art and Fear," by Bayle and Orland. Enjoy.
After having read the article Art and Fear, my thoughts are once again drawn to the fact that I am a writing chicken. No matter how many people tell me my writing is good, or that I should publish, or that I should do something, anything with my work, I won’t. I know I won’t, and it’s a tragedy. Well—not true. Maybe I will. One day…one day after I’ve graduated from grad school and academia has filled my head with bigger dreams and greater self-confidence…then maybe.
Perhaps this fear is stemmed by my weird desire to know the reasons behind why people say the things they do. Not in a psychological sense, but in a, “Is-that-what-they-really-feel-or-is-that-just-what-they’re-saying” sort of way. Are the professors just telling me that my writing is good so that I’ll appreciate them and give them good course evaluations? Is my (ex)boyfriend telling me it’s good in hopes of scoring boyfriend-points? And my friends—are my friends. Most of them will say positive things no matter what I do or write. Family is the same. It is for this reason that I broke my father’s heart by never playing the piano in front of him (for, the same rules apply to any art form). No matter how much he told me that whatever I played, however I played it, he would love it…I feared his deeper judgments.
But at the same time that I want to get at the truth behind people’s words, I also don’t. Because I fear that criticism. I wouldn't believe in the criticism, at first. I would dismiss it, and then watch it slowly eat away at me over the course of weeks. I don’t want to know that my professor gave me an ‘A’ just because. I want to think that my paper was really “masterful” as the comment at the end declared. As much as I desire to know the truth, I’m happy living in the blinded blissfulness of Compliment Land.
This is why I fear Publishing. I envision a fifty-something, sharp-looking, powerful woman in dated corporate casual sitting behind a desk with a giant rubber stamp, ready to smack my paper with its message: DENIED. With that one inky message, all my worst fears would be confirmed—that all the people I care about had been lying to my face.
Well, as a random person who has no reason to lie to you, I think that your friends, family, and professors are telling the truth when they say that your writing is great. You're obviously not as afraid to publish as you think, since you're willing to write your thoughts for everyone on the Internet to see. I hope you'll eventually get published in a book or magazine as well! :)
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