So Wednesday I talked to one of the people who workshopped my story all that time ago. He's the one in charge of this online literary magazine the workshop's for. I basically told him that the whole process of workshopping my story destroyed me. "Self-esteem pretty much tanked." Pointing out that there wasn't anything to say about the other stories we looked at, I asked him if he knew what that said to me. He was observant and tactful in replying, "That those two were better, but that's not what that means!"
It's not?
Apparently not.
It means that there was nothing to be said. It means that my story was good. It was a good concept, and it was /worth/ critiquing. /Worth/ talking about. /Worth/ changing and /worth/ keeping. That the comparison to "The Yellow Wallpaper" wasn't meant to make my story look inferior, it was meant as a compliment. That the other stories were pure fluff and there wasn't much that you could change to make them /better/.
Even though degrading the work of others shouldn't make me feel better about my own work, it kinda did. So I stood there singing in my head, "I can write, I can write, I can write!" Part of me wanted to let out a sigh of relief over having my skill verbally validated, but I'm pretty sure this guy would have asked me for an explanation for that and I can't explain /that/ big, long issue.
I'm not saying everything I write is gold.
I'm not saying that I'm going to go back and re-write that fountain pen story right away.
I'm not saying that I'm going to get pompous and big-headed about my writing.
I'm saying that it feels really good to know that I impressed someone. It's good to know that I can write something of worth, I have that ability. Je peux le faire. Vraiment. :^)
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