I don't want to

Well, I started my class last night. It's an Intensive Writing Workshop. Now I have to send 20 pages of my WIP to 10 strangers. If I never had to see these strangers again, I wouldn't care so much. But I have to let them read it, then critique it. It is making me a nervous wreck. My stomach's in knots and I just want to curl up in the corner and never come back out. I know that everyone starts some where and that my WIP is just a start. But I just feel so stupid around these people. They all seem like really intellectual people that really know their shit. I, however, feel like a dumbass who should have just stayed home. I know that I am not stupid. I am sure that I could out Photoshop and out cat the best of them, but it doesn't feel like enough right now.

Writing like a man?!

I was talking to a guy at work the other day. We were discussing books that we liked. I had told him about these books that I like to read by J.D. Robb, who is actually Nora Roberts. He told me that his wife loves Nora Roberts books and that he tried to read one of her books, but it was too girly. I told him that these books were very different from her other books. The heroine in these books is a tough, no nonsense cop. That they are not romance in novels. So then he says, "Oh, she's trying to write like a man." I did not say anything. I was not really surprised by the statement. But the more I think about it the more pissed off I get.
What the hell does that mean? If I don't write some stupid claptrap about romance or buying shoes, then I am writing like a man? I am not ashamed to admit that I read the occasional book like "Bridget Jones Diary". They are funny and cute and easy to read. But I've read a lot of stupid shit by men too. So let me tell you that WHEN I get published if I hear some jackass talk about book being written "like a man", I'm going to blow his ears back.