dear student, love professor.

maybe i have nothing to say? or maybe i am saying nothing.

Chelsea:

As always I could be all wrong.

As I wrote on story, I can only retreat from this story with one of two sentiments:

1) I can assume I don't get it, and it is a failure of intellect on my part, and you are lording your intellect over me.

2) You don't understand how writing works, you don't care about me, the reader, about addressing my needs, you are all about you.

I think I'll go with number 2.

That said, it's your writing, your words, your life, and you can only do what you have to do. But I can only be honest and tell you what my response is. I would be doing you no favors if I didn't.

So, I think we should find out what the rest of the class thinks and go from there.

If they responded the same way I did, perhaps we can read the beginning of the story, sentence by sentence, and let you know what the experience is for the reader. 

Okay, we'll do that.

Best.

PS: Why should I trust you with the minutes of my life?

I particularly like how he sailed right into "Okay, we'll do that," as in the decision has already been made, he can predict the fate of my fiction. I am seduced into thinking that if he had to list two sentiments, point 1 and 2, then it was actually choice 1 he felt most. I wanted to throw up after an hour of sitting directly across from each other at the table, him at one head and myself at the other, as if we were in a legal battle, a divorce and he was trying to screw me over all the while claiming it was just the reverse. To quote, "You slammed the door in my face." I guess I should think twice about asking for a recommendation. Joke. Also, it has been extremely disenchanting, half of my professors associated with Columbia have been uninspiring and they have all had to try and make a living as a screenwriter instead. The most disenchanting part is he just missed the whole point, he missed me completely, "you don't care about me". To quote twice more, "This is like an avant-garde piece of writing which is fine, but it's too much work for me, very difficult, a personal struggle, but the language is great" and "What is worth our time? Ulysses?" All I could think was that I wanted to ask the class something, if you are going to reference Ulysses, did it teach you something, anything at all about style, about another way of thinking about fiction? This isn't to glorify me. This is to say it is a constant pull, putting so much of your inside forth, only to have it passed over because it is dense and refuses to spoon feed anyone...shit. This is also to say why I wanted to throw up. When the workshop ended and was allowed to comment, I only had one breath, "I'm glad the work felt aggressive and oppressive seeing as it all takes place in one day and is entirely mental. Isn't it interesting, in letting you listen to how you think, you felt exhausted. It is isn't? Exhausting." I did come close to crying, I know I did silently. I just am drained, it was nine pm and I was done with the workshop going absolutely nowhere. I don't oppose criticism, in fact I expect it and know it is necessary. However, this was different. I felt like I was being attacked for letting feelings be real, for being true to a state of mind. I was still confused, this was fiction (so I made the facts not not real, but unreal) but people still had to feel comfortable and in control, they refused to suspend their disbelief to take a chance. I feel this has always been a heartbreak in literature, in the arts, it takes generations to understand, it takes too many moments after the moment to appreciate. People want linearity in fiction, but in reality they're all screwed up. I felt exactly what I had written: "And a line is passed on on and on, five times attaching to me, let it go, they try harder, launching word-darts bull's-eye, stings, hickey on neck, yes that ridiculous, ravenous." It really was all there in the writing, already said, the time predicted. 

PS: "Chelsea, have you ever spent any real time or energy on writing poetry?" 

EDIT on 11/12: I woke the following morning the above had been written with an email addressed to the class from the professor:

All, but especially Chelsea:

When one begins to be persuaded that certain things must never be done in fiction and certain other things must always be done, one has entered the first stage of aesthetic arthritis, the disease that ends up in pedantic rigidity and atrophy of intuition … Invention, after all, is art’s main business, and one of the great joys of every artist comes with making the outrageous acceptable … Art, at those moments when it feels most like art—when we feel most alive, most alert, most triumphant—is less like a cocktail party than a tank full of sharks.--John Gardner.

Perhaps as one of the older generation, I should preach a little sermon to you, but I do not propose to do so. I shall, instead, give you a word of advice about how to behave toward your elders. When an old and distinguished person speaks to you, listen to him carefully and with respect—but do not believe him. Never put your trust in anything but your own intellect. Your elder, no matter whether he has gray hair or has lost his hair, no matter whether he is a Nobel Laureate, may be wrong. The world progresses, year by year, century by century, as the members of the younger generation find out what was wrong among the things that their elders said. So you must always be skeptical—always think for yourself. --Linus Pauling on acceptance of Nobel Prize, 1954.

I believe the above.

My fear is that we (I) let the voice of the teacher dominate. I suppose that is mostly my fault. But I only saw questionnaires engaging Chelsea's story from Rijin, Lauren, Stephanie, Lisa, Allie, Jennifer. It is imperative that all of you convey to Chelsea your reaction to the story, especially if your take was positive.

Ideally, I think, you bring a balance to a critique. Ideally you come at it as a reader critic, a teacher critic, and a writer (artist) -critic. Ideally you never come at it as a critic critic (a statue has never been raised to a critic, said someone). Anyway, I fear I got the balance wrong, and came only as a reader critic. I pray, always, to the god I don't believe in, that I never come at something as a critic critic.

I am also fairly cerertain we should always celebrate attempts to get outside of that "whitenoise" of the center. I forgot to join the celebration.

Mea culpa.

Best.

for the first time, i hadn't any words. i did cry because i was happy/sad that he called notice to the fact that almost no one had written reactions. they could not read it because they did not want to work as readers (and writers for that matter), they did not want to read. to me they were fake, they were close-minded, and it was them that were "all about themselves". and most of all, i was hurt because i knew yesterday had been an attempt in dumbing me down. this mornings letter proved it, and this was the closest thing to a confession and an apology.

what was especially predictable/comforting was another email in my box that followed it. from another professor, someone who has always believed in me, knows what i read, knows where i have been and where i have gotten, has heard my struggles, my inspirations.

Dear Chelsea: Wondering how your workshop went last evening. I've been reading the Waldrop book you lent me- I can see why she appeals to both you and Judah, et moi aussi. I'm planning to come to the reading tonight at St. mark's Place Shurch with a friend, so perhaps see you there. If we arrive first we'll save you a seat, if there are any seats!

it may just be my imagination, but i feel these two letters are coming from two entirely different places and perceptions of me. she is a phenomenal woman and the other day she approached me for permission to send a work i had written to her sister who has been going through a love struggle of sorts. her husband had cheated on her and claimed that after all these years he had never loved her. my professor told me she believed my work would bring clarity to her sister, tell her what she wasn't letting herself see or decide upon. i was touched that my work was doing what i wished, helping guide others, helping reveal something about one's interior, i want to be that voice, i want to be that mixture of sensitivity, strength and sensibility. i hope my obsessions can free others [from theirs]. 

Chine, I love that you stick up for yourself. By the way, do not take it personally. Think of it as a learning experience. You have the world in front of you, the Beezer never let anyone score on her. Until soon, Dad.

This too was very true. I put my entire body before the ball, my stomach buried into the cleat, collided with every opponent, doing anything to prevent a ball from hitting the back of the net - my frame - making sure defeat was less possible, impossible (if my mouth guard was in). I risked physicality to back my entire team. And it was the biggest, most liberating high of my entire life. Nothing compares to the responsibility I took on as a goalie. Playing on the edge of success and defeat taught me everything. Soccer was my proudest moments. And shaking hands with peers, strangers, the other side after the game was the achievement and the most motivating reward.

• any thoughts would be nice, anonymous, anything. what do you like about my writing? why do you read it? what in particular are you drawn to? the pieces that are abstract, dense or only the more telling, clear and candid writing. is there something you would like to see more of?subjects, thematics, specifics you would enjoy having more fleshed out? anything would help, my site gets/is getting more and more hits, but why is it that you are here?