For the past two days, all of Salt got together in the Red Room for a critique session of every single person’s story. Having 35 people giving you their opinions about your piece is kind of scary, but so so helpful–it was a pretty unique experience to be able to carve out time for everyone to show/play/read their piece and have a roomful of people who want nothing but to help them make it better go at it. It’s been surprisingly easy this semester to get rid of any traces of ego to just absorb people’s input and use it to make myself better, but as the weeks go on, and there is a LOT of critiquing, it’s easy to get frustrated since I know that what I’ve got isn’t living up to the beautiful, nuanced, earth-shattering work I’m doing in my imagination. In general though, I feel like the more feedback I’m getting, the more worth I’m getting out of Salt–and watching this video the other night in the midst of an all-night script ripping-apart-and-putting-it-together-again session was really heartening.
I really cannot believe there are only four weeksish left—I’ve definitely learned a ton, but it’s all gone so fast and I feel like I (and my stories) are still nowhere near where I want them to be. Feeling good and excited about what’s next, but also a lot like this most of the time:
The past few weeks have been big for Salt radio alums— Greg Warner won best news feature at Third Coast (HERE) and Zoe Chace had another piece aired on All Things Considered (CLICK HERE TO LISTEN). Even though I can’t imagine getting there, these two, and all the other Salt alums now working in radio, writing or photo, were once right where we are now. Good sign, right?
