January 21, 2013
So after the initial situation with writer’s group – my speaking out about one of the organizers rudeness and unprofessionalism…. well it seems like now another one of the organizers is now slightly pissed at me.
Oh man.
Yesterday I scheduled an additional meeting this week. Two maybe. One tonight and one for Thursday.
I’ve been a member of wrtiers group for over a year now and have been a co-organizer before and in the past the main organizer / leader let me schedule (as well as anyone else) meetings whenever we wanted to, as needed based on critiques we needed.
In the end there are close to 300 people on the list. Most are inactive, but still there are more than enough people to go around.
Anyway this other co-organizer was wondering why I was scheduling so many meetings. I told them that I couldn’t make the upcoming Wed and Fri meeting and that having a meeting on Monday and then waiting until Sunday wasn’t going to cut it for the amount of writing I’m doing these days.
What ensued were several emails of him telling me that I was focused on my goals and he was concerned about the writers group long term goals.
What’s the long term goals? Huh? No one has ever discussed long term goals before? I have no idea.
To me the writers group is a resource to help people get published. Therefore people should have people ready to read their work and critique (and vice versa) as and when they need it.
His focus is on building big numbers at the groups so it looks “cool”
I guess.
Or so he can have the community to all hang out and smoke after the meeting.
Maybe that too.
Right now the group has grown so big that we have to split into two groups on Wed and Friday.
If we’re splitting into two groups, then surely we can add more meetings.
Hey, let’s be clear. I see what he’s doing (to a certain extent) when people see a meetup with lots of people RSVP’ed they want to come.
It’s that damn human nature thing, if I see a place is popular, I want in.
But I personally think writers group has different objectives than say, a spiritual group like I was hosting… where I think numbers probably count more for people seeing that others are coming… they don’t want to feel like a loser or have all the attention on them.
Okay, I get it…. I don’t like that feeling either.
But yes, I am self focused here. I am using this group to help me improve my writing, to get my books out there.
I don’t give a damn about having a hang out on Friday night, which I know that a lot of them come to socialize / no plans…
And that’s fine. There are people I like in writer’s group, but again, I come there to get work done. It’s down to business for me… and again, I realize that most in that group are not focused on that.
In any event, this post is just to say, I’m pissing people off.
Who knows how their critiques will be of my stuff now…
Did I just screw myself?
I don’t know.
I don’t think someone would be a dick and say random bad stuff —
I would hope people are able to separate personal from professional.
Again, I think this all goes back to standing in my power. Honoring my desires. And NOT DIMMING MY LIGHT cause I don’t want to piss someone off and want to play nice.
And yea, there is some conflict in my head about “play nice” and “be nice” and “get along with others, we all help each other”
But oh g-d. I’m not spending any more of my time emailing these people back and forth debating writers group issues. What a complete waste of time and energy. I got wrapped up in it the last couple of days. I will stop it now.
And yes, again…. I am still questioning my people and getting along skills….