I’m back indoors after a hot mushroom coffee, thinking about what a challenge it can be to balance being open, real, and whole, while also remaining a deeply private person. As always, I'm two different things at once.
The Pressure to Be Transparent
As a writer, especially one who fell in love with words through diary-keeping as a kid, I’m used to using my life as raw material for the things I create. If something hits me hard, I'll probably look for a way to write about it. If I notice a pattern, I use writing to break it down and see what else I can turn it into.
I write to figure things out and find meaning in things that otherwise wouldn’t make much sense. But there’s a difference between writing from life, because that's what works for me, and handing something vital over on a silver platter for public consumption.
I'm not about completely spilling my guts, but I care about being authentic and helping others around me become more comfortable with their own authenticity. And the older I get, the more I realize it really doesn't have to be one or the other –– either holding it all in or way oversharing. There's definitely a middle ground there, and I'm getting better at staying there.
Not Everything Needs to Be Shared
Since starting my Substack newsletter, The Writer in the Wild, I’ve been thinking more about what it means to write publicly with intention. Especially as I try to shape that new space into something useful, something that helps people reconnect with their creativity and feel at home in their own writing lives.
That being the case, I'm grappling with the usual questions. How personal is too personal? How much do people even want to know about my non-writing life, and how much do I want to tell them in the first place? I know I'll eventually strike a solid balance, because I always do, but there's always a lot of back and forth I go through before I get there.
Writing from the Inside Out
All things considered, being honest doesn't necessarily mean putting every detail of what you want to talk about down on the page. You just have to tell the truth about what you do put there. That’s something I've been working hard at lately — not just as a writer, but as someone trying to show up in public spaces more authentically and intentionally.
One of the ways I check in with myself is to ask, "Am I sharing this to be understood? Or am I sharing because I want to feel edgy, daring, or just plain validated?"
I don’t want to use writing as a mirror, or at least not anymore. I'd much rather use it as a window — something I can look through and through which others can look back without losing their own reflection in the process. The work already knows what to say. I just have to trust it.
So, if you’re in the process of writing your own truth — whether it’s on a blog, in a notebook, or maybe even just in your imagination while doing the dishes after dinner — I hope you know you don’t owe anyone the whole story. Just focus on the part that feels ready and wants to be known. And if all you write today is one honest sentence to yourself, that’s more than enough.
* Another brick in the wall for the Feast of the Wandering Pen, a movable celebration all about showing up no matter what.
I also think that there's a balance between sharing something personal and oversharing. So glad the older we get, the less we need to feel edgy or "strange". We just...are.
ReplyDeleteExactly! Whatever we happen to show up as that day always seems just right. Wish I'd known how to do that years ago!
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