The Courage To Be Imperfect: My Spontaneous Workshop Story
4 Tips for My Fellow Aspiring Creatives šæ
Sometimes, when weāre out in the world, opportunities to share our creativity with others magically appear. These situations feel almost ordained by the universe, especially if weāve been channelling Julia Cameronās idea of synchronicity. Here I argue that once weāre thrust into a situation on the edge of our comfort zone, itās time to roll up our sleeves, get over ourselves, and just do it.
This happened to me last week. I was sitting in the sauna, musing and deeply relaxed. I was weeks deep into my summer holiday, in a forested campground in Ukiah for my friendās āCalifornia Divorce Party.ā As I baked in the heat, I heard about the tie-dye and sound bath sessions others planned to give the group. Thatās when a little voice spoke up in my brain.
āYou could host a sex writing workshop?ā
My heartbeat thumped in my ears. My eyes zoomed in on a droplet of sweat that was snaking down my arm in the red light. There was that familiar flood of feelings: the guilt, the shame of my creative inadequacy, and the fear of boring people to death. Guilt, mostly because I promised my paid subscribers regular sex writing workshops since last year, and Iāve been terribly lax about doing them (Iām finally putting them on pause to focus on the sex journal for now).
But then, a new feeling emerged. It was a light, silent knowingness of brewing excitement. A feeling of inevitability. A feeling of destiny. That feeling said to me:
āItās now or never.ā
Iāve hosted a number of workshops in the past, and now, armed with the first draft of the sex journal, with 20 chapters and plenty of prompts, this one would be easier than ever. Challenge accepted, I thought to myself. Whether or not it was going to be any good, I was determined to host my first in-person workshop.
The next afternoon, after we had recovered from a hike down to the waterfall and revived ourselves with a strong dose of homemade focaccia, olive oil, and salt, I called everyone to the communal kitchen. As the circle gathered around me, I sat in the foldable camping chair with my laptop on my lap, starting to worry. Were people going to be able to focus on writing for 20 minutes? 20 minutes was like an eternity in this day and age of TikTok and Instagram Reels. Luckily, I didnāt see any phones out. We were in a rare moment in nature where people were trying not to use their phones. I was prepared to take advantage of this.
Here is how it went, and what that experience taught me, arranged as tips for you aspiring creatives out there:
Start with less than what you think you need, then improve with time š.
I dug into my backpack for some extra pens and ripped off a couple of sacred lined pages from the back of my large Moleskine journal.
āWeāre going to write for 20 minutes about sexuality and sensuality,ā I explained, āAnd we have 20 different topics to choose from. So, let me read those topics out nowā¦Obsession, Safety, Deviance, Ecstasyā¦ā and so on.
The group chose āDevianceā. For this chapter, I had selected the poem āRendezvousā by Edna St. Vincent Millay. I read the poem aloud twice. I didnāt like it. I hadnāt implemented the feedback from my first round of beta readers. It didnāt fit the theme. But anyway, away we went.
With so little planning, of course, I was extremely underprepared, and it felt wrong not to have the perfect poem to fit the theme. I realized at that moment that I should have printed out copies of the poem for each person to make sure everyone could read it beforehand. Yet the miracle is that, despite missing half of all the basic stuff, I was still able to give the workshop. While I can notice all the ways the workshop can improve, itās shocking that I needed far less preparation than I thought to begin. Perfection would have definitely been the enemy of the good.
We have to start small. We have to start with less than we think we will need. And we have to have patience to allow these offerings to improve over time. I am sure I will offer more workshops in the future, when the time makes sense to me. Regarding that, Iām going to repeat one of my favorite quotes:
āJust as it takes time for a speck of fish spawn to mature into a fully-grown fish, so we need time for everything that develops and crystallizes in our world of ideas.ā āAlvar Aalto, quoted in āThe Pool and The Stream episode of the 99% Invisible Podcast.
We must command the space š§āāļø.
At some point during the silent writing part of the session, people started whispering. And then a couple more friends arrived late at the ranch. Even though I felt nervous, I still spoke up quickly, calmly, and firmly. I said,
āHey! Weāre in the middle of a silent writing exercise. Here, if you put your things down, you can come join us.ā
With that, and a moment more of my patience, the group settled back to their writing. Iāve been working a lot on building my self-esteem in therapy these days. Iām slowly learning that if we donāt value our own work and think itās important, no one else will either. Once weāve committed to doing something or leading creatively in some way, we need to take up space. We need to own the group, command the room, and impose limitations on people. Limitations are how the best creative works often come about.
On the topic of taking our work seriously, I keep coming back to this quote from Cindy Gallop. She said,
āPeople value you at the value you are seen to put in yourself.ā
Share what you love and be open to surprises š.
After we had written for 20 minutes, I invited everyone to share if they wanted to. The first person to speak was a girl from Turkey.
āI havenāt written in ages. This was so great! It made me want to get back into writing again. But I wrote a poem in Turkish.ā
What she said moved me. When something creative comes to us naturally, it can be hard to put ourselves in someone elseās shoes. But once we share what we love with others, we may be chosen to help them bridge the gap between where they are and where they want to be. We may find that our work liberates others in ways we didnāt expect, and that is a beautiful thing.
I insisted that she read her poem in Turkish anyway. We listened. Do I have any idea what it was about? No. But as I heard the beautiful sounds, I realized how naive I have been. Even if the sex journal is in English, I should be encouraging people to write in their first language if they want to. And Turkish is a beautiful language. Hearing it added a whole unexpected layer of depth and richness to our experience.
After she shared, another surprise came: a guy shared next. Yes, I had a few men in my workshop, and being from the Bay Area, they were very receptive to the exercise. It was great to get his perspective. It helped me remember that even if men are almost never my target audience, my work needs to be inclusive enough so they can participate.
I feel like I got extremely lucky with this group of people. I got to share my love of writing, and afterward, a couple of them followed up with me to see how they could continue writing their stories. It felt like a mini miracle and an honor to be able to help people explore their own stories, like I had been graced with the new role of āstory stewardā. It reminded me of working with my magical writing teacher, Ann Randolph. For all you curious creatives and aspiring writers out there, Ann happens to be hosting a few free days of her workshops next week.
I highly recommend joining:
Sign up for 4 Free Days of UnMute with Ann Randolph
Tell your story, shamelessly š .
During these early years of my new creative career, Iāve often felt like Iām ānot enoughā. Iāve sidestepped all the gatekeepers of the fancy publishing houses by becoming an indie author, only to be self-critical and doubt whether this makes me a ārealā author after all. Plus, Iāve never had any reviews from reputable authors on my books or any of that circle-jerk virtue-signaling.
Giving this workshop changed something important for me. As I shared what I wrote in the session, which is too revealing about one of my lovers to share here, and how I had come to write about sex in general, it helped me realize that being a self-published author and a self-made teacher could actually be a strength. Here I was, speaking as one blogger or aspiring writer to another. I wasnāt some inaccessible figure with thousands of dollars in book advances from fancy publishing deals. I was just human.
One of the attendees had their own blog. When we caught up in the sauna afterwards, I felt grateful to tell them about my self-publishing journey. Instead of this being a source of shame for me, this was now an opportunity for me to share something about my values, and to stand by what I truly believe in:
Creatives should own the rights to their own work.
Fuck the gatekeepers.
Our stories need to be shared with the world.
I mean, of course I believe that! Iāve just gone through all the craziness of trying to republish poetry, where most of the worldās great poets donāt even have the rights to their own work. What the hell is up with that?
What came out of that workshop was moving, tender, surprisingāall of the above. Of course, the nervous wreck part of me was relieved that the workshop was over. But as I savored the last moments of writing, I knew that some goodness for the group had already been accomplished without truly understanding why.
I hope that some of these tips resonate with you on your creative journey. For me, it was a good reminder that if we remain open to new possibilities, these unexpected experiences can help us work on our shame and remind us of who we are.
I hope you have a beautiful, inspiring, and creative week.
Love,
Tash
š āļø
p.s. I asked Claude, the AI, and she informed me that it would be rude and inappropriate to share what I wrote in that sex writing session about one lover in particular, even if it were for paid subscribers only. I guess she has a point: what I write in the workshop should stay in the workshop.
