My First Songwriter Workshop

So, after 10 years of writing, I finally attended my first songwriting workshop yesterday! Barbara Cloyd came up to the Player's Pub in Bloomington. Needless to say, I jumped at the chance to participate. As the day drew near, I became a nervous wreck. When most writers attend a workshop, they expect to hear how amazing their songs are. I am always the opposite. I go into critiques terrified that I will be told to give up on this whole songwriting thing. I'm always shaking in my boots when it's my turn to play because I'm worried everyone will hate it. I guess that's the perfectionist in me. Even when I was in school, I viewed anything less than perfect as a bit of a failure. Some failures were easier to swallow than others, but the need to do better always kept me going. Now, as I focus on my writing, the fear of failure is always one step behind me. And that's what keeps me running.
So as I sat in the workshop, terrified to find out that I've been doing everything wrong all these years...I found myself pleasantly surprised. She went over song structure, and I was like "okay, I've kinda got this down". Then she went over lyrical development. I was creating a mental checklist of "yes, I do that. Yes, I know that I need to improve on that. Yes, I've been working on this over the years."  When she got to the business aspects, I sat there thinking "yes, I know my market. yes, I'm at least attempting to build professional relationships." ... Now before everyone thinks I'm getting all big headed over here, I know that I have a VERY long way to go. A very, very, veeeeeerrrryyyy long way to go. But I feel like I've got a better foundation than I thought I had. It's a very basic foundation, but hopefully I can take what I've picked up over the years, and what I learned at the workshop yesterday and start the framing. And I have a great crew to help me. I have the support of my friends and family. I have the knowledge and experience from my co-writer to guide me. I have an amazing opportunity to co-write for an up and coming artist. I am the luckiest little wannabe writer in the world!! The workshop not only gave me insight into areas which I need to improve upon, it gave me a little boost of confidence. A little "yeah, I almost kinda sorta know what I might be doing and I'm not completely clueless". A tid bit of "I've got the tools. I may not know how to use them in the most effective way, but through trial and error, I'll eventually stop smashing my thumb with a hammer". Thank you to everyone who has helped me out so far, and thank you for your continuing support and wisdom. Come hell or high water, I'm not giving up on this!