When we begin writing a story, things are often foggy and unclear. We know that we don’t know something but are not sure what that is—what we do or don’t understand about our story. So, we write to discover something, and that something has to be meaningful. Meaning creates a connection to our readers. We connect when we put authentic characters on the page. The only way we succeed in this quest is if we are brave enough to put our true selves on the page first—shamelessly—and that is a scary process.
Putting our fears, insecurities, doubts, secrets, and shameful memories in writing (real or not, imagined or not, poetic or not) inevitably makes them true in our hearts. Writing them down sometimes leads us where we don’t want to go. There is value in inviting shame and vulnerability onto the page but for this, we cannot allow the obsession of the result to paralyze us. Writing is truly about trusting the process, looking inward, and meaning it!
