I’m undertaking a 1000-day reinvention project, blogging here daily to track my progress. In Thursday Thinker, I share a smart idea or theory.
A good writer is a vulnerable writer—one who writes not form invincible strength, but from vulnerability. The best writing comes from the heart, and the heart is tender. When our writing feels dull or flat, it is because we are refusing to say something we consider unsayable. We are refusing to be vulnerable, to share our secret heart.
Whenever we are willing to be totally honest, our writing has “spice.” As we strive to become comfortable with an uncomfortable truth, we become daring. Risking what may feel like—and often is—a large risk, we are being obedient to ourselves.
Julia Cameron, Write for Life: Creative Tools for Every Writer
I’ve felt extremely vulnerable in my writing lately, because all I want to write about is falling in love. That seems like something I shouldn’t write about or talk about. I should keep it to myself. When I write about it, I feel a little thrill, even as a part of me says, “you shouldn’t be writing about that!”
I also feel vulnerable when I share how my plans keep changing. I say I’m going to do one thing, and then I get disenchanted with that, and start another.
My latest plan: take a draft memoir I have written and turn it into a series of personal essays, each paired with a painting. I feel anxiety about this work. It feels too personal and too raw. It will show me as I really am: flighty, unstable, always seeking romance.
Cameron says, “As we write, we open ourselves to Higher Forces. We receive hunches and intuitions that lead us down our proper path. At first, we may mistrust such spiritual input. But as we continue to write, our intuition gradually becomes a working part of the mind.”
Perhaps I keep changing my mind about what to focus on because I’ve failed to follow my intuition well enough. I’ve had the memoir project in the works for years, in various formats (a true memoir, a screenplay, a novel based on the events of the memoir). But I haven’t focused on bringing it to completion.
I suspect if I were to follow my intuition as to what to focus on and emphasize vulnerability rather than trying to eliminate it I could make better progress with my writing as well as with my painting.