If you haven't any charity in your heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble. ~Bob Hope
I'm a little sad.
Yesterday, I resigned from one of my writing groups. I haven't been active in there lately because there is one member with whom I can't seem to get along. I've spoken about her before on this blog. She writes literary fiction, and she's actually quite good. She's intelligent, she's savvy about the business of writing and she's dead serious about it.
She's also (and this is my opinion only) unnecessarily harsh and cruel. Recently one member of the group had a difficult time with a very ill mother. She posted a little about a recent trip and how difficult it was for her. And, recently, there have been other posts of a personal nature.
Apparently this person has forgotten about the half dozen posts she made about the badly injured dog she took under her wing. Because yesterday she said that she believes that the "tell-all" personal dramas have no place on the group message board. I think the wording she used was uncalled for.
Then, she was very harsh and unkind in her responses to the responses to her post, as well. I didn't respond because I was very angry, and was afraid I'd say something I would later regret. Additionally, I didn't want to start a war with someone over something like that. I heartily disagree with her position. This particular group has members who are dead serious about their writing. But they are also friends.
Or so I thought.
Apparently this person will continue to make snide or hurtful comments to the members of this group as long as she is a member. In my resignation email I said: When we are published, there will be nasty, hateful and cruel people out there who say bad things about us and about our writing. I expect that. I do not expect to receive that kind of treatment from the people in my writing group -- people I would like to call friends. (This group) is becoming a hostile environment and is not conducive to creativity (at least for me).
How sad. I agonized over my choice because, with one exception I absolutely love the members of this group. But one bad apple and all that.
Still, I'm very upset.
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6 comments:
Ugh, why do people have to feel so superior that they throw kindness and good manners to the wind? Maybe she's a very good writer in her genre, but she had to start somewhere. I wonder how far she would've gotten if there had been someone like her critisizing and demeaning what she loved to write about. Maybe she's jealous that the romance industry is so successful and perhaps hers isn't quite so lucrative.
I wonder if anyone has complained about her callous treatment of her listmate. I think someone should.
mhedxpht (aw come on, I havent even had my coffee yet!) mighty horses evade doctors xrays prancing happily together
Sadly, Ceri, she is one of the co-founders of the group. I am the only romance writer in the group - everyone else is writing either mysteries or literary (or both). She's always been a little nasty, but this was, IMHO, over the top.
snpd - Some nasty people die
That's too bad, but you made the right decision. Writing - heck, life itself - is way too difficult to waste your energy on people like that.
Yah, if she's one of the people in charge then nothing is going to change and she's going to feel that she has the right to say whatever she wants, no matter who she hurts. Its too bad, but you certainly don't need that in you life. You're better off without.
qrrjybuc(blogger hates me)quarrelous rabbits ran just yesterday becoming useless specimens
*hugs* I agree that you did the right thing by resigning from the group. Who needs all that negativity?
vximrdg - Valerie's xylophone integrates many roving digital geckos (And if MY xylophone did that, I'd get rid of it REALLY fast! *g*)
{{{{{{MARIANNE}}}}}}
What a rough decision. But I think you stated your case with a lot of grace.
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