What No One Knows

At some point in your life, I bet you were given a writing prompt. 

Maybe in 4th grade you were told to write a paragraph on your favorite animal. Or later in middle school, you were asked to write a haiku about a dream. Or perhaps your HS English teacher assigned a 500-word essay describing your worst vacation.


For me, writing prompts have always been useful. However, one writing prompt in particular has been tapping me on the back of my shoulder for years, trying to get me to turn around and face it. In fact, this writing prompt has been pestering me for as along as I’ve been writing: Share your shame.

I’m a private person (also self-conscious, sensitive, introverted…) so SHAME is the last thing I want to share — but, as a writer, I know it may be “the subject” that resonates more with readers than any other.

Why?

Because everyone has dark thoughts and secrets. And everyone steeps those dark thoughts and secrets in silent shame. It’s part of being human. And, on the most basic level, we read in order to understand what it means to be human.

In the end, not only can sharing your shame be a gift to your readers, it can be a gift to yourself . . . because speaking up and sharing your shame is, ironically, the only thing that releases you from it.