Julia asked Elizabeth Gilbert:

I greatly admire your ability to bare your soul in your writing, so bad-ass! I know I have a great story to tell, but I'm so afraid that revealing my "humanness" will make people not like me, or just think I"m a freak, in a not good way. Did you ever worry about this? If so, how did you overcome it?

Elizabeth Gilbert Some people won't like it. Some people will like it. Some people will be offended. Some people will be uplifted. There is no way to please everyone. (Sometimes there's no way to please ANYONE!) What you call "bad-ass" in me, other critics have called "self-absorbed", "narcissistic", and "pathetic". But it doesn't really matter one way or another, because I have no choice but to write the stuff I'm interested in writing, and to share it when I'm done. (Actually, that's not true — I DO have a choice. I can choose not to write my stories, and not to share them, but that is such a dreadful choice, I can't even handle it. So really: No choice at all.) Also, don't let the fear of what other people will say stop you from doing the work you want to do. Once you're finished with the work, you can decide whether you feel emotionally strong enough to share it. But don't sit there not writing at all because of some phantom fantasy that people will think you're a freak. Do what you need to do, because the alternative is just terrible.

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