The Art of Infiltration: Literary Circles: Speaking of Self-Indulgence...

For a brief time in college, I was a triple major: English lit, education and creative writing. While I'd like to think it's because I was incredibly ambitious, I think I was more just young/naive to think that being a triple major was a good idea. Either way, it didn't last. I dropped creative writing after taking my one and only creative writing class.

Mr. Full-of-Himself, who was a "published" author, taught the class. His credentials included an instructional text used by our university and a few magazine articles. Mr. Full-of-Himself loved to work in the phrase "as a published author" before offering his opinion in class discussions. When we shared our writing, he would rip us apart. He never complimented us - and we had some really talented writers in that class. As a result, self-indulgence and competition dominated our class environment. We ripped each other apart during critique sessions. We rolled our eyes when others spoke. Admittedly, I couldn't take it, I dropped the major, and I stopped writing.

When I eventually started writing again, I did it for me. I hesitated to enter the literary world - blogging, contests, conferences, even querying. However, in the last few months, I've been floored by the encouragement and loveliness from other writers, bloggers, agents, and authors. I never expected such a supportive community. I didn't anticipate rejection and critiquing to push me to do better, instead of make me want to quit. Maybe it's because I'm older or tougher - I really was quite wimpy in my early years. Hell, while I'm?speaking of self-indulgence?at it, let's add wiser in their too. Either way, I grossly underestimated the literary community.

Thank you to the bloggers, authors, writers, agents, editors, and interns for the encouragement and support I didn't see coming. You are all a wonderful group of people I feel lucky to have come across!

Is it just me? Anyone else have any horrible or wonderful writing community experiences? Please say it isn't just me.

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