“What’s so interesting about me?”
“But isn’t writing about myself just self-indulgent?”
“Aren’t I just being a narcissist?”
“Isn’t it a bit of a pity-party?”
 
These are typical of the questions I get asked when running a writing workshop. Many students are understandably nervous about sharing true stories about some of the bad things that have happened to them.  

• They fear they may be judged negatively. 
• They worry they might be accused of over-sharing or too self-pitying. 
• They wonder if there is even any point to digging over old ground and bringing up negative subjects. 
• They believe that being vulnerable is a sign of weakness. 

 
I don’t agree.
​

In 2018, Terry Anne Wilson and I published Monday Morning Emails. It was the most honest and open book I had ever written. I shared about the abuse I suffered as a child, the mental health issues my twenty-something was going through, the pain of living a life in limbo as an expatriate whose next posting was controlled not by us but by my husband’s company. I shared about the ageing and illness of my father, who passed away soon after the book’s release. These and many other issues. Yes it was tough to do. Yes, Terry Anne and I sometimes questioned our motives but deep down we both knew that no one else had yet dared to share such truths about the mobile life and it needed to be done. The outpouring of gratitude and the emotional reviews we received since, prove we did the right thing.

​And so, when I’m teaching, I do my best to soothe the worries of my students and encourage them to put pen to paper and even go so far as to press the terrifying Postbutton on their blog or social media platform. Here are some of the reasons I believe daring to share tough stuff is worthwhile:

1. “We write not to be understood, but to understand,” wrote Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland. You see writing about tough stuff helps you to make sense of what has happened and in some cases can even provide closure.
2. If you have been through something that happens to other people too then your story will resonate with them. They will feel less alone.
3. Readers are much more interested in seeing how your story relates to theirs than focusing on you and your frailties. Instead they only see themselves.
4. A 2012 study conducted by Brigham University found that writing about tough stuff reduces the negative emotions connected with it.
5. This same study discovered that sharing those stories in written or verbal form lessens those negative emotions still further.
6. If you have found a way to overcome your bad time then sharing how you did so will be helpful to those who read it.
7. When your story is constructed in such a way that its goal is to give readers hope and to be supportive then it is not narcissistic.
8. When you start daring to share your stories, perhaps in a safe environment, such as a writers’ circle, or club newsletter, rather than online, you will begin to feel heard and supported yourself, while maybe giving someone who reads or hears it permission to share their own story and be helped too.
9. A story is of value if it fulfils one of the following: Inspire; Support, Inform or Entertain. If it does none of these then it may indeed be of less value to others, but nevertheless, if it helps you to express it even if only in your journal, then go for it. Write it and burn it. Express it and let it go.
10. If you have insights to share as a result of your story and its journey towards healing, then go on, be brave, press that Postbutton and then ask some of your cheerleaders and supporters to read and comment. Even if no one else ever sees it, the boost and self-confidence you will receive will give you the strength to continue.  

Tanya Crossman, author of Misunderstood, recently recorded a heartfelt video review of Monday Morning Emails. If you are still in any doubt as to why your story might be worth sharing your own story, then you might like to have a watch. 

In other words, you have to be true to yourself, your meaning and your story and the way you write must reflect this.

I went on from The Liar's Club to read Karr's second memoir, Lit, which tells of her failed marriage, her battle with alcoholism and the jerky progression of her career as a writer. Let me give you an example of her voice, found on the page that faced me when I cracked open Lit's spine at a random place:
​

You see what I mean about voice? Sure, it's about what you write about, but it also about how you say it. If you are still confused, go read Mary Karr.

Thanks, again, to Cath Brew, for illustration the writing prompt below. What will you write? 

​When Jane asked her daughter, Pat, an American living in London, what she wanted for her birthday this year, Pat replied, “I want to take Jo Parfitt’s Life Story Jar writing programme and I want you to do it with me!” Now they have taken advantage if the Buy One Get One Free offer and are enjoying their fourth lesson.

Try it for yourself with a taster lesson at www.thelifestoryjar.com. ​

​#lifestoryjar #writelifestory #familywriting #freelesson #leavealegacy #BOGOF

What do you think of my new phrase – writing ugly?

A few weeks ago I got an email from one of my current mentees, Keri.
 
“I guess my biggest fear is that the book just keeps dragging on and I’ll never finish it unless I give myself some targets,” she wrote. “ I want to embrace the writing 'ugly' concept we talked about.” 
 
Like we talked about? Did we? Did I come up with that fab phrase? Sometimes I surprise even myself with my word acrobatics. I basked in the glow for a few moments, but deep down I knew this was not my phrase. It was not my phrase but I wanted it. Badly.
 
Ever since I found the wonderful Anne Lamott’s phrase the Shitty First Draft in her book, Bird by Bird, it has helped me and my students out of many a sticky situation. I love it and use it so much that folk now know it by the acronym SFD.
 
I can credit the Shitty First Draft as the reason I manage to write quite so much. 32 books and counting and still the irresistible ideas keep coming, usually in the middle of the night. I write this newsletter, I write poems, I write a journal and I write blogs and articles and every single time I stand by the SFD. I love it because, like with a belch, it’s ‘better out than in’. I know I’ll feel better about myself if I have written something, however badly, and reached the end. The thoughts and ideas have been set free of the bustling city that inhabits my mind and are on the page.
 
I love the SFD. I need the SFD and yet writing ugly has me in its thrall. Writing ugly seems to take the SFD a step further; it’s as if it wants me to write badlyon purpose. And, as I lay there, wide awake, one evening around midnight last week, I realized the power of this new phrase.
 
You see…
 
Writing ugly is about writing a scrappy, illegible table of contents for that book on a piece of paper you tear from the back of a book.
 
Writing ugly is about setting the timer for ten minutes and making yourself write with no particular direction in mind, again longhand, just to see where the words take you.
 
Writing ugly is about chucking random phrases down, one on each line and calling the result a poem on short lines, like novelist Catherine Cookson did.
 
Writing ugly is about ‘putting your pen on the paper and just going’, as Natalie Goldberg instructs in her seminal book on speedwriting, Writing Down the Bones.

Writing ugly is about sending your sabotaging inner perfectionist on a long hike.
 
Because, you see, the fundamental difference between the Shitty First Draft and writing ugly is that there is no sense even of ‘draft’ in the new phrase. And without the pressure of the knowledge that what you put down has to ultimately be useable, you can let rip. What does it matter if what you throw at the page never actually turns into a draft of something? 
 
I had to thrash it out with Keri.
 
“Is that my phrase or yours?” I asked her. “Because I think I want to adopt it.”
 
“I think it’s mine, actually,” she wrote. “But you came up with the title for my book and so you can keep it. By the way, I plan to write ugly from 1 Feb - 30 April to really make some progress. I realise, after the ugly writing there will still need a whole lot of re-writing/edits afterwards...”
 
Keri knew intuitively that writing ugly was akin to limbering up, flexing her writing muscles and simply getting words down on paper and out of her head and the ether. She knew that it was a preliminary stage and gave me the credit for an idea that was actually all hers.
 
So there it is. I have taken my new phrase for its first outing. What do you think? Will it catch on?