Y is Writing Stupid?

I'm taking a workshop at the 92nd St. Y. This is exciting in theory because I like being around other writers and because it will supposedly give me the incentive I need to work on my own things. In practice however, things tend to look much different. This is largely because, while there are a lot of things I like about writing workshops, there are very few things I like about actually writing.

The last class I took at the Y was a 9 week Advanced Fiction course. The teacher was great. She was gorgeous and charming, and I was able to refrain from hating her for these things because she also had a good sense of humor and gave sharp critiques. The people in the class were also great. Sure, one guy was writing a political satire about an incompitent president who's last name was Tree, but even he was friendly. No one was oafish or obnoxious or tried to dominiate the conversations and for the most part everyone could write. It should have been the perfect opportunity for me to get myself in gear and start working on something new for the first time in two years. But of course this didn't happen. I ended up doing what I always do which is spend far too much time writing comments on other people's stories and far too little time working on my own. By the time my submission date came around I freaked out, called in sick to work, and turned in something I'd written five years ago. I was mad at myself and said I would never do that again.

The next time I had a story due I did it again.

So now I'm taking another workshop and I have a story due on Sunday. I know what I want to write about, but am worried that I will once again become paralyzed with fear that the friendly and overconfident hipsters and bored retirees in my class will read my work and declare me untalented. I need to get over this and I'm not sure how. My first thought is to pretend that the thing I'm writing is simply an extended blog entry. Now that I've seen this in writing it sounds like a terrible idea. I don't have any other ones though so I guess it's what I'm going with.