Face the fear and write it anyway
Why we must write ourselves onto the page / upcoming LIVE dates for the Membership
What I’m saying is: don’t avoid yourself. The story that comes calling might be your own and it might not go away if you don’t open the door. I don’t believe in writer’s block. I only believe in fear. And you can be afraid and still write something. No one has to read it, though when you’re done, you might want them to.
Melissa Febos, Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative
Hi friends,
On Wednesday, I’ll be sharing the final audio episode of my memoir, Held in Mind. The serialisation has been truly Dickensian: almost a year has passed since I, terrified, hit “publish now” and sent the prologue out into the world. I had no idea how it would land, nor how long it would take for me to serialise it.
Answer? Almost a year.
It’s nearly finished and therefore it’s time to reflect. Next week, I’ll write to you - spoiler-free - about the experience of sharing this story. This week, though, I’m thinking about the writing that comes way before a memoir is ever the plan.
So, what kind of writing am I talking about?
The scrappy journal entries. The diaries. Maybe you don’t even consider yourself the kind of person who keeps a diary, but I wager you at least make lists. Maybe you fill the notes app on your phone with stuff that – on one level or another – stands as a record of your life? I know I can look back at my to-do lists and breastfeeding time logs from over a decade ago and see a stressed young mother trying hard to convince herself possibly even harder than she was trying to convince others that she was managing.
If I’d known something as simple as writing my honest feelings for a short period of time over a few consecutive days could have helped (and also made me a bit more physically robust, too) I’d have done it.
This week, I’ve been reading Sarah Manguso’s new novel, Liars, which is described as “a searing novel about being a wife, a mother, and an artist, and how marriage makes liars of us all.” Cheery. Here, from early in the novel, the protagonist notes upon her partner’s arrival in Athens where she is on a creative residency that:
“Without meaning to, I began to restrict the content of my diary. I had become unable to articulate certain feelings, so my body became their cultivation dish.”
She is like a case study from Bessel van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score, isn’t she? And this short passage brings up something vital, I think. That we censor ourselves even when we know it’s not good for us to do so. We do this, perhaps, when the kind of story we really need to tell is at odds with the one we wish we were able to tell. Are we so afraid of the truth that we’ll wilfully invent or redact what we record of our lives, as though in the event of our eventual re-reading we’ll be able to tell ourselves that this is how it was?
Who are we kidding?
I know that it’s fear that stops us. Fear of facing up to what is going on in our lives or the things that continue to haunt us from our past. Perhaps it has an even stronger hold over us than even the fear of someone else reading what we’ve written? It’s why I quoted Melissa Febos at the top of today’s post, because I say we must face the fear and write it anyway. It’s what I encourage everyone who comes along to my expressive writing sessions to do, no matter if they consider themselves a writer or ever plan on sharing anything they write with others.
In setting timed prompts and holding space for vulnerable feelings, I hope that they’ll at least tiptoe into those under-explored places and emerge having faced something significant. I extol the (proven) benefits to our physical and mental health in writing "what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about.”1 I encourage them to “be willing to be split open,” and when they’ve been so, that they be gentle with themselves as they re-enter the real world.
Still, I get that for some people all of this might seem very far away.
It’s why there’s no sharing during these sessions. I encourage folk to come along with a favourite pen or pencil and the crappy paper rather than the nice notebook. A mug of something warm. We make a point of drawing a line under our words at the end of each exercise with a view to throwing them in the recycling after we say our goodbyes.
What’s to be frightened of in writing the truth then destroying it? Especially when in doing so, you are going to benefit in ways you could never have thought possible from a writing exercise…
Here’s an exercise for you to try…
1. Time: Write for a minimum of five minutes per day for four consecutive days.
2. Topic: What you choose to write about should be extremely personal and important to you.
3. Write continuously: Do not worry about punctuation, spelling or grammar. See where the mind takes you. Keep your pen on the paper.
4. When the time is up don’t read over your words, just discard them. Repeat the next day.
If you’ve had your interest piqued then:
Upgrading to my Membership community gives you…
Seasonal Journaling Sessions (next session Thursday 17th October 8-9pm BST and open to Monthly, Annual and Founding Members - Zoom link shared on Thurs, midday)
Writing for Better Mental and Physical Health, based on the Pennebaker Method which you can find out even more about here. The next four-week course starts on Tuesday October 22nd 8-9pm BST for Monthly, Annual and Founding Members (Zoom link shared Tues 22nd, midday)
A new audio episode of my memoir, Held in Mind each Wednesday, including bonus behind-the-scenes bits
Access to every post including comments
The full archive (free posts are paywalled after 8 weeks and there’s MUCH to explore)
Invitations to join the community in Chat.
A Founding Membership gets you all that plus…
My flagship online course, Memoir in a Month, which runs again in January 2025. Find out more here and sign up to the waitlist here.
Finally…
I’ll be in conversation with
, and on all things midlife including desire, creativity and hormones as we take LIVE to the Zoomsphere this coming Friday evening 7.30pm BST. If you want to be there with us and take part then you would be MOST welcome though there will be a replay available. I’ll share the Zoom details with you on Wednesday, but for now, save the date and if you haven’t yet read All Fours by Miranda July, you might want to get your mitts on a copy, and if you’re not already subscribed to Layla’s publication, read this post with more on our plans…
Lindsay x
Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones
That Pennebaker method seems interesting, I have no doubt it will bring all those benefits but there's something about writing and then discarding, not looking at my words, that seems almost impossible! I feel like that's probably a sign I should try it 🤔
“We do this, perhaps, when the kind of story we really need to tell is at odds with the one we wish we were able to tell.”
This right here is why I haven’t been able to write for my Substack for a year.
I’ve gone back and re-read things I did post and can see that my writing at times alluded to what was unfolding before I was fully conscious of it. I think that’s left me a bit worried that if I do write for public consumption again I’ll share more than feels safe or right. And so… while I do have a few scathing scribbles across many journal pages, I’d also have to admit, most of my personal writing has been self-edited.
I haven’t been able to write the way I long to and I really need to find my way back. Thanks for your call-in here Lindsay.