I planned a DIY writing retreat this weekend. It derailed before it even started—but not for the reasons I expected.

I should have left home, even just for a local hotel. Instead, I stayed put, surrounded by laundry and that damn knotweed that’s plagued my yard for years. (As an aside: I hate using chemicals, but this knotweed has beaten every other approach.) But household distractions weren’t the real derailment.

Claude Sonnet 4.5 was.

The Setup

I’ve been working on an old fanfiction story—something I started years ago and never finished. Since I haven’t completed anything since abandoning it, finishing this seemed like a way to break through the barrier and get my mojo back. I’ll never publish it commercially, so it felt like a safe playground for experimenting with AI writing tools.

I’ve tried several: ChatGPT for brainstorming and editing, Midjourney for fun (though I’m really about the writing), and Claude for fiction feedback. They’ve all been helpful in different ways.

But Claude Sonnet 4.5 turned out to be something else entirely.

The Feedback That Broke Me

Yesterday evening, I asked Claude to review a scene. The feedback was so devastating that I had to shut down my computer and walk away. I spent a sleepless night spiraling, and only now—24 hours later—am I coming to terms with what I experienced.

Here’s what I’d written: A traumatized teen goes to a party, gets drunk, and is slipped LSD. The consequence? The psychedelics open his mind to new magical powers. Great plot twist, I thought.

Nope.

Here’s part of Claude’s feedback: “This is not just ‘showing an impulsive teen’—this is romanticizing drug use as a solution to problems and a path to empowerment. For a fanfic that will likely be read by young people, this sends an extremely dangerous message.”

Cue my shame spiral.

Jesus fucking Christ on a cracker, how had I never seen this? Am I shallow? Stupid? I should trash this story. I should never write again. I’m a degenerate. There’s something wrong with me…

And so on.

The Long Walk

After a sleepless night of self-flagellation, I went for a long walk this morning. I needed to move my body, to think—or rather, to listen. I downloaded a podcast where two women discuss a chapter from Brené Brown’s Atlas of the Heart, focusing on shame, guilt, humiliation, and embarrassment.

First: Brené Brown wants everyone to know that shame is universal. And shame is different from guilt.

With guilt, you feel you did something bad. With shame, you feel you are bad.

With guilt, you can take action—fix the mistake, examine what led to it, prevent it from happening again. Guilt, after the initial sting, can move you forward.

But shame is a painful assault on yourself. Judgment. Secrecy. Silence.

Oh yes. I wanted to withdraw. Destroy my story. Never write again. Never tell anyone what a horrible, thoughtless person I am. How lacking in critical thinking.

The walk helped. So did naming what I was feeling: I am ashamed of myself. And that’s a normal human experience. That alone—just recognizing it—made me feel better.

Then I tried to look at what I actually did, without judgment. (This is very difficult for me.) What did I do? I wrote a plot point that I thought drove the story forward, without considering its implications for the character or readers, especially vulnerable ones.

But—and this matters—because I used this AI, the problem was caught before any reader was harmed by my poor choice.

I also learned something crucial: words have meaning, and I need to think critically about my choices.

And I have a tool that can help me watch for these problems.

The Lessons

There’s more to work through. I’ll be journaling about this for a while: practicing self-compassion instead of judgment, being mindful, learning to observe without attacking myself.

So many lessons.

Here’s one that keeps surfacing, from Ted Lasso: “Be curious. Not judgmental.” (Which, as it turns out, is not actually a Walt Whitman quote.)

I could write about meditation, Stoicism, Buddhism, mindfulness—they all express this idea in some form. But all that knowledge comes from reading, not practicing.

Now I need to practice curiosity and let go of judgment.

Moving Forward

As for my writing weekend? I don’t know how much actual writing will get done. I’m taking a critical look at the story to see if it’s salvageable—and I think it is. The core story is sound; it’s this one plot point that needs rethinking. Maybe the magical awakening happens differently. Maybe there are real consequences to the party scene. Maybe I need to sit with it longer and let curiosity, not shame, guide the revision.

I’m still stuck on this idea that I won’t move forward to new material until I finish this story. The only way out is through.

What I know now: getting feedback that exposes your blind spots is gutting. The shame is real and it hurts. But on the other side of that shame—if you can sit with it, name it, and separate who you are from what you did—there’s growth. There’s the chance to do better.

And yes, I’ll be signing up for a paid Claude.AI account. Not just because it writes well, but because it asks hard questions.

Sometimes that’s exactly what we need.