Our writing group has been meeting for three years and we used to push each other's work in ways that felt generative but now every critique session feels like we're all protecting each other's feelings and the work is getting softer and safer. We've become too close to be honest and too invested in the friendship to risk the creative truth.
More people experience this than they realize.
Intimacy has replaced rigor, and the group's evolution toward emotional safety has inadvertently compromised its creative function.
“Where Are You with Photography — seeing as practice?”
If this sounds familiar, the Library can help you find the bigger picture.