Tell the Truth As You Understand It

“If something inside of you is real, we will probably find it interesting, and it will probably be universal. So you must risk placing real emotion at the center of your work. Write straight into the emotional center of things. Write toward vulnerability. Risk being unliked. Tell the truth as you understand it. If you’re a writer you have a moral obligation to do this. And it is a revolutionary act—truth is always subversive.” – Anne Lamott     Goodness, here I sit on a Monday night with a Tuesday morning deadline to write a blog post. There are a number of other things I could be doing, like watching the latest episode of Downtown Abby and finding out, good god, if Edith’s boyfriend, the father of her unborn baby, miraculously returns, saving Edith’s reputation and bringing her the happiness we know she deserves.  Seriously, I’ve tried to write this blog post a few times, even looking back into recent Wild Writing journals to see what I could get away with. Nothing. I’m feeling pressed to do something and I’m feeling empty of anything pithy, funny, smart or admirable. Sitting here trying to rouse the troop of my words, I get this quote sent to me from my friend Marci Hannewald and I realize the jig is up.   Forget about writing something funny. Something that bathes you in the best light. Forget about writing something important or sage and that will inspire people to want to work with you or know you. Just write about what’s true. “Write straight into the emotional center of things. Write toward vulnerability....

Telling True Stories

One of the best things about staying with your work for a very long time is that you have a chance to understand, year after year, what exactly you’re doing. Not even because you’re trying to do it better, but because each year your work reveals itself even more to you, and you can deepen your understanding as to what it is about your work that you really care about.   I knew I was teaching people something about writing for the last 14 years, but each year was an opportunity for me to peel away a little more the layers and get to the center of that work. Yes I could help people get published and find homes for their books and stories. Yes I wanted to help them tell their stories in engaging ways, but the more I worked with people, the more I understood that what I really cared about – more than whether someone published – was to inspire and to be among people who were striving to find the most honest language to tell their stories with.   My aim is to help people find the words that open like doors and which invite both the reader and writer into deeper understanding of what it means to be alive.   What I look for in a story is a chance to learn something – – not even a lesson per se, but perhaps some instruction on how to behave in the world. I remember seeing Ira Glass from the radio program, This American Life, on stage in S.F. many years ago and he told...