Writing with Rox WEEKLY—It's just writing

READERS! THIS WEEK I AM PLAGIARIZING MYSELF FROM A BLOG POST I DID RECENTLY FOR THE LOFT TO PROMOTE MY UPCOMING HEALING MEMOIR CLASS! READ ON FOR MY "PROFESSIONAL" TAKE ON WRITING YOUR TRUTH! ENJOY! 

If I could get a nickel for every time a student brought up the topic of, “but what if someone reads this and doesn’t agree? Will they sue me? Will I lose my home? What if it’s too self-indulgent? Will everyone be mad at me?” I’d be rich—well, less of a starving artist anyway.

The truth is, for now it’s just writing. What others think is something to consider—later. But for now, it’s just writing.

It might sound simple, but many struggle to “just write” a single word, let alone a paragraph on the page when considering writing true stories, or heck, writing an email for that matter. It’s not that we don’t have ideas and passions—we’ve all got enough material to fill volumes. It’s that our busy, thinking, judging, worrying minds get to the page quicker than our hearts, running over our truth with panic: “What if no one wants to hear about this? What if someone gets hurt? What if I’m making this up? What if I am not sounding writerly enough? What if? What if? What if?”

Sadly, this fear shuts down the creative flow, drowning out your natural voice to the point where you have no idea what and why you wanted to write in the first place.

You’re not hurting anyone or asking for a lawsuit simply by writing your truth. This is a hard thing to trust for many students; they hesitate to get started because they feel the very act of writing is going to get them in big trouble. There seems to be a collective guilt about writing (let alone publishing) memoir these days, a sense that, by nature, writing creative nonfiction is incriminating.

What if I don’t say it right? What if I hurt someone? What if I spell it wrong?

Still, these questions come up all the time and public opinion is a valid concern. To soften the struggle a bit, I always come back to the same two questions when teaching Healing Memoir (or just about anything, really): What is your intention? What are you afraid of?

Intention is simple: “I am writing this memoir because…” Along those lines, “What are you hoping to share and teach your readers by writing your memoir? What is the one thing, the one gift you hope readers walk away with after reading your memoir?”

Chances are you began writing just to get something out of your body, to heal something, let something go. Later, if and when you think about publishing, chances are, your intention is clean and loving. None of us really wants to hurt anyone or make problems for relatives or get back at anyone who didn’t love us enough. Likely, you want to benefit others, help others heal something that you have lived through. Perhaps your intention is to make someone laugh or embrace yoga or overcome trauma.

On the other hand, your intention could be to bust someone or get back at them. You might be writing for revenge. Whatever your intention, there’s no good or bad, right or wrong. You’re just writing. You can decide later how you want to sound when you publish: loving or angry. You can bust someone lovingly and it will end up okay. However, a loving intention typically, like in the movies, wins readers over. No one wants to root for you if you are still pissed off at your first husband and it’s still ruining your life. We’re more apt to root for you if you heal through the grief and then make your life better. If your intention is loving, even the most questionable characters will end up beloved by readers. And especially you.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t be mindful of how others might receive your published memoir/personal essay/article/etc. When I write about friends and family on my blog or in articles, I have to ask myself how they will feel being revealed doing or saying something—however silly or mundane—in the middle of a story. Most of the time, it is celebratory and makes them feel good. My intention is always loving.

Fear is a bit more challenging. Asking, “What am I so afraid of? What is the worst thing that can happen?” are good questions to linger with.

For these purposes there’s a writing exercise I like to do. Imagine your book is done and published and shining in bookstore windows and cyber windows across the galaxy. Imagine the person you most fear reading it picks it up, reads it cover to cover. Then they sit down and write you a letter. Write that letter in their voice… “Dear Rox...I never threw you and Lisa out of the f***ing car at the Santa Monica Pier and told you f***ers to walk home!"

Chances are it’s not as bad as you think. Even if it is, what are you going to do about that? Is it their anger? Is it still yours to carry? Does it really matter if your truth does not match theirs? Typically, these issues can be sorted out and certainly worked through on the page so your story honors your intention.

But on a deeper level—deeper than the fear of what others might think or say or do and judge—often times the deeper fear is facing one’s own truth. In all its “ugliness.” The truth even you don’t want to think about, that you may have forgotten or pushed to the depths. The irony is that this deep fear is a great gift—it is the life force, the prana, the juju, of your memoir, not to mention the weight you’ve been aching to lift from your life. Once you allow for that truth to come to the surface, you can make peace with it. And if you can make peace with that deep fear on and off the page, you will have a very lively memoir where everyone (friends, family, and readers) is rooting for you to unveil the truth you’ve been holding on to for way too long and get on with the business of living a whole life. Making darkness into healing light. It’s your typical hero’s journey. Everyone’s journey.

But first, it’s just writing.

WRITE WITH ME? 

WHAT IS YOUR WRITING INTENTION?

WHAT WOULD YOUR LETTER TO YOU SAY?

WHAT TRUTHS MIGHT YOU BE AVOIDING ON AND OFF THE PAGE?