To Be Blunt (and maybe a little whiny):

Trying to connect and share my writing with people outside my comfort zone was really frustrating. And the results were nil.

I had selected a few acquaintances and shared my writing with them through personal messages. I chose women that I don't know very well and whom I only interact with on Facebook these days, but I felt I would appreciate my writing and have good insights. For instance, one women is the mother of nine children, so I think she's a great person to share writing on the struggles of motherhood.

I was honest about it being part of an assignment, but I told them some of personal feelings and goals surrounding the assignment that would hopefully transcend my personal essay into something even better. And then I waited with a pounding heart.

Maybe I should explain something: I am a jealously private person. In fact, I feel my share-my-writing-outside-of-my-homies assignment as already been better than fulfilled through this blog. I've talked about some of my most vulnerable moments on this thing, and maybe I'm a big baby, but that's a big deal to me. I feel like I've stretched myself by what I've shared with the class, so maybe it was a little too soon for me to solicit personal, feedback from these aquantances.

When they didn't respond at all, I didn't take it very well. Instead I had my husband read my stuff again (not very creative there, I know, I could have least gotten my mom or something...), and he was good at giving me critical feedback.

I'm going to keep trying and pushing myself. But I'm just wondering if we can admit that we're all at different places with sharing our work, especially our honest, autiobiographical work, and forgive those of us who have not reached the ideal?