Abhorrent Honesty

Friends,

I am frustrated. I am taking a non-fiction writing class at present and all was good until my professor called on me to comment about a book that I had no time to finish nor had any interest in finishing. And so I told my professor just that. I told my professor that it took me one hour to read twenty pages and that I did not have six hours to dedicate to the book (I do in fact have other classes). I told my professor that also, the book was uninteresting to me and so it made me even less encouraged to finish it.

Apparently my honesty was not appreciated in a class on a genre that was built on being honest. Ironic, I think so.

I will say this: I never made the decision to not finish because I disrespect my professor (though perhaps my actions unconsciously did so). I do. I never made the decision not to finish because I'm lazy (actually I'm quite busy and the decision was made to keep my sanity, which, in all honesty, is starting to fail (oops, honest again.)) And finally, in a workshop class, I want to workshop. I will read my contemporaries before I read authors who have made their place in history because I believe that in workshop, your job is to make your peers and yourself a better writer. If the goal of this workshop is to get me to read pieces by people who I can not critique, then perhaps the name should be changed from non-fiction writing workshop to non-fiction exploration.