Vulnerable Writing

I had a conversation this week about writing and it felt so good. Why? Because I haven’t really spoken about writing in ages. Interestingly enough, our conversation touched on how writing can at times leave us vulnerable. Early on, this would have bothered me. Despite writing a blog each week, I consider myself somewhat of a private person. But these days, it isn’t that I no longer want to have my privacy, it’s simply that I realize what vulnerability can lend to our writing.

Many times, when we first set out to write, we have an idea in mind of what we want to write and how everything is going to play out. We’ll write a book of course and it is just going to need to be read by a family member or two. We’ll send it to a few agents or even publishers and of course one of them is going to pick it up and then the next thing you know, we are an overnight sensation and we spend the rest of our life on book tours, doing interviews, etc. Right? Wrong.

For most of us who write fiction, that idea we start with begins to blossom until we realize that what we imagined isn’t quite that simple and as such, we may need to do some research to get our facts right because nobody likes books that don’t make sense (even if they are fictional). Then, we sit amongst a pile of notes and pages of our manuscript and we realize that we can’t think straight because we have been living in the fictional world of our book. Once we do finish, we then can start to rip it to shreds as we work with friends, critique partners, possibly editors or agents should we get that far…. And then there is the rejection, which is a whole different topic. I know, I’m not making this sound wonderful and honestly, it is a humbling process filled with lots of learning. I also have found the experience rewarding in its own way and as with anything else, you get better the more you practice.

Good luck and happy writing this week!