I didnt set out to make this a post about me i wanted to write about wanting beta readers...

it must be my perfectionism talking, because i think what i want in beta readers is what most people end up getting through just posting their work online and letting reader comments happen as they may. i want the safety net of being able to say 'this is rough", or "still in progress" and create a dialouge with someone about the story while feeling like i still have wiggle room to change it and improve without the 'set in stone' feeling of having published it on a fiction site.

or maybe its just the sheer terror of insecurity, particularly in the field of writing, which unlike art i did not go to school for, but like art still gives me the occasional bout of crippling anxiety. but along with that anxiety is an almost equally powerful desire for attention; particularly the kind of attention gained when people interact with a creative work of my own two hands. its frightening how much i crave that kind of attention, nearly as frightening as the act of putting my work up for criticism. and i have a whole host of mental issues surrounding criticism.

my mother is a very critical woman and pushed me hard in school, as many mothers are wont to do. but most of my teachers loved me and praised me and i got plenty of attention for being engaged at school, and it helped that i had a genuine love of learning. even if mom didnt feed me the kind of positive attention i craved, my teachers made up for it most of the time. (mom's primary reaction to my positive grades were 'i expected nothing less'.)

but it was in college where the anxiety really blossomed. i scraped into a good design college on my 3.5 average and moderately good test scores. the first year of design school was meant to weed us out. the second, at least in my memory, was to break us. if we survived to the third year (btw, my school was a five year degree due to biannual co-op quarters,) the professors' attempt to remold us in their image. their overall philosophy regarding teaching style or individuality was "they can learn who they are when they graduate. for now, at least they know how to properly kern." ahhh bitter hindsight. or stockholm syndrome.

im probably leaving out a lot. but somehow i find myself unable to write more. its probably time for my daily anti-anxiety meds.

anyway, it was at school when i truly learned how to hate myself and fear negative critique, with a nice heaping portion of mistrust in my own taste and artistic judgement. its like that one anime where the pianist eventually cannot hear the notes he himself is playing. at the height of my anxiety, everytime i look at something ive done and think "ah, ive actually done a nice job, i like this one", i'd immediately flash back to all those times when i thought that about a class assignment i was about to put up for critique...only to have it ripped apart. and on the heels of that memory, the times when i slaved over a piece all night and just said 'fuck it i hate it but i dont have anymore time to fix it' and brought it to class, somehow that time i would get praise, or at the very least, wouldnt get punished with verbal abuse.

so maybe the desperation in my soul for attention from other fans on the internet for the works of my hand and mind is a deep seated craving for evidence that my judgement is not completely ruined; that things i think might be good actually might be good.

the sketchblog i started not too long ago is an experiment in posting nearly everything i draw, not just the stuff i think is 'worthy'. to force myself to let the drawing go, rough and unfinished, raw and nearly unedited, without panic. and maybe its petty and shallow of me to throw up things so rough and unfinished, to expect commentary on such drivel...but i'll try it, and see if i learn anything. even if that something is 'how to endure'.