When Words Are The Sticks And Stones

Barbara: Remember on Tuesday when we asked what we would say to our 12-year-old selves if we could (and, wow, thank you for one of my favourite comments sections ever!)? Well, it got me thinking about something that someone actually did say to me in those vulnerable growing-up years, something which changed my life. And not for the better.

The reason I want to share this with you now is that it was certainly a turning point moment in my life, but also, more importantly, because I am finally and utterly over it.

Okay, so the words…

I got hooked on writing when I was pretty young. I mean, I loved to perform and direct and had huge plans for local theatre shows or fairs that my friends would help me organize for weeks and which then kinda fizzled out (I guess follow-through was not my strongest suit back then). But, more than that, my precious secret was that I was actually a writer. Scribbling first draft work into a notepad and then meticulously transcribing the story through my little portable typewriter. I amused myself by calling the typed version of my work my “copyright” (copy/write… get it??? Unfortunately, when my parents patronized me with delighted laughter about this malapropism—like I didn’t know what I was saying!—man, was I pissed. And embarrassed.) My coup was when I wrote a 60page novel at 13. No matter that it was a blatant rip-off of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, it was my own beautiful creation.

Barbara at 10

Two years later, I had high hopes for my English class. We were finally attempting creative writing and I was sure I was a shoe-in to ace it. I would finally bring my little secret to the light. I would be recognized. I would be renowned.

But the teacher had other ideas in mind. She took it upon herself to stand in front of the class one day and list all the people she believed to have genuine talent. As she pronounced the names, I nodded in recognition—yes, she was a great storyteller; yes, he had such a way with words—and waited with bated breath for my own name to be called. But she continued with her list, her eyes scanning the classroom, several times holding on me and then passing on, announcing on and on, name after name, until the names began to lose value—what? him??? He doesn’t know a simile from a metaphor!—until she was finished and ready to direct our attention to other English matters.

But wait! It doesn’t end there. As hurt and humiliated as I was (why are we humiliated by omissions that no one else would even notice?), I swallowed past it and carried on. Until a few days later, this same teacher called me into her office and told me—unbidden, mind—in a calm, clear voice that she understood that when she’d made her “talented writers” pronouncement, she’d noticed that I might have hoped that my own name would be called, but that she was sorry she just couldn’t do it. My memory after that is a blur: I think I nodded and kind of wandered out into the hall, trying desperately to hold it together.

I’m pretty sure, in the end, I kicked some creative writing butt in that class, earning high marks on all my pieces. But I let those strangely pointed words become the mantra to which I pursued (or didn’t) all my writing in all the years after that. I let those words sit on my shoulder and become my cross for so many years that it finally had no other choice but to decay and disintegrate. It wasn’t until the cross was gone that I realized that it was gone.

(I will also allow that years and years of writing practice—and now blogging—has helped to erase the onus.)

And I know we will all be outraged at this teacher’s cruelty (or at least that is the most common response when I share this story—which isn’t often), and we will wag our fingers at her casual damage, and we will pat my back (appreciated but truly not necessary) and comfort me. But I wanted to share this with you because I think, in many ways and in ongoing ways, we are always talking to our 12-year-old selves. Or at least we are trying to. And we ARE changing our personal histories by listening to our older, more mature selves and … well, getting over it.

Revenge is a dish best … left in the kitchen.

Deb: Barb, this is so poignant. I agree that we are always talking to our 12-year-old selves and I love this story. I certainly don’t love it for the pain it caused you, but rather for the lesson it taught you. You did it. You kept doing it!!! Do you know how many people would have never put pen to paper again? In this instance, you do not need to go back and talk to your 12-year-old self. Your 12-year-old self got it, I think. It just took some years of maturing to set it in stone. Well done. You should lay your head on the pillow and say Mrs. (insert teachers name), today I am a writer.

Reviews In LIfe And Art

Barbara: I’ve been thinking about reviews lately because a) Gae at Trying to Stay Afloat in a Sea of Words brought up the subject last week in her blog, and b) my film opened last Friday and obviously got some reviews. Now, the question Gae asked was how can we accept reviews when they are often so unreliable for our own standards. She had just seen a Broadway show that she and her friends hated for many sound reasons, only to read later that the critics loved it for all the same reasons. It threw off her sense of judgment. It made her question how we can possibly have—if not consensus in art—some kind of accurate barometer. How can something be so completely wonderful to one person and so loathsome to another? And how are critics truly different from any other discerning, intelligent, knowledgeable person with an opinion?

The truth is, as much as I’ve hated a critic or a review—both for myself, my projects, or my favourite pieces—I think it’s also what makes art art. It reminds us that anything created by the human imagination can also be examined and evaluated. And so it should be! Art is like a crystal prism: you turn it one way and one colour is refracted, turn it another and a different colour shines through, and on and on in infinite variations. It isn’t a static thing that is either GOOD or BAD, end of point.

Let’s face it, it sucks to have someone hate your work. Yes, the film did have a few detractors—it is a quirky, complicated vision—but it also had great reviews and zealous fans. Of course, I obsessed over the negative words. I’m funny that way (omg, are we not all like this?!). But then, after awhile, I found myself slowly shifting from disappointed to galvanized. Critiquing is actually a sexy process if you think about it. It undresses the work, then tweaks and prods and strokes. It sees everything from close up. And every critique is a little different and performs the deed in its (his/her) own way. You hate the process, love it, resent it, desire it, dismiss it, yearn for it, push, pull, push again, grab it back. When it’s through with you, you lie worn and exhausted on the bed. Spent. But strangely satisfied.

Many of you are creative people and will be subject to reviews of some kind. I just want to remind you that if and when you ponder the reviews or the possibility of reviews, you should also see it as a part of the whole experience. Your work is now bigger than it was before, bigger than you. So make sure you take your satisfaction.

Deb: Barb, I LOVED your take on critique completing art despite the pain it may cause the artist. My husband and I have a theory about critics and critique of art. They fall into two categories. Those who loved Moulin Rouge and those who hated it. We use that one as an example because we have discovered that there is no one in-between. You loved it or you hated it. The same with Across the Universe. Now I know that the same could be said of many, many films but there are a scant few films that fall into the love it or hate it category.

We were having a dinner party with two couples who are dear to our hearts. Both couples hated It’s a Wonderful Life. We stared at them and time stood still. What? Are you ... and we stopped ourselves from saying ... are you fucking crazy? We even tried to lure them with the fact that Jimmy Stewart’s performance (particularly on the bridge) is one of the most brilliant acting moments of all time. So here is the thing. Do you a) berate them? b) belittle them? or c) respect them? Well, despite the fact that we a’d and b’d them behind their backs after they left, we had to live with the fact that this is their opinion and that makes it of real value.

We tease our sister-in-law about loving Rat Race because we thought it was the lamest film ever. But is it? She loved it. She laughed. It spoke to her, therefore, it is of value. After all, a critic is just one opinion. A film-educated opinion I grant you, but one opinion nonetheless. I saw Terms of Endearment weeks after losing my beloved aunt at fifty-two and my dear friend in her twenties after childbirth. I HATED IT! The timing was awful for me, given the subject matter. Was I being objective? No. Neither are critics. They are influenced by what they think is cool and current and avant garde and by what affects where they are in their lives right at the second they saw the film. They would deny this, but it is true. Because they are human.

I watched Date Night (which got panned) on a plane last week and I slapped my leg laughing several times. My reviews of comedy movies are based on not the two thumbs up but the leg slap. My problem is that I sometimes do not see a film because of the critics. That is a shame and I hate it when I do that. For, as Barb so brilliantly put it, they are necessary to the industry and to the art, but not necessarily to us as people. As artists, we put it out there to be judged and despite the judgment, good or bad, we keep putting it out there. As an audience, as individuals, we laugh or we cry or we slap our knees or we get up and walk out. We are our own critics.