Sharing stories, sharing yourself
We’re living in an age of sharing—or perhaps of oversharing. We’re not just sharing our stories, we’re also often promoting ourselves, building a personal brand, or creating an “author platform” for our work and our careers.
To be a writer is to ask if or how or how much to share. And those can be burdensome questions, especially for those of us who just want to write our stories and be left alone.
For many years, I didn’t show anyone my stories. I had a master’s degree in creative writing, so I possessed all the hardened calluses that workshopping stories build. Still, I wrote in a solitude protected with ever-thickening barricades.
I suppose somewhere within myself I believed my stories weren’t good enough—or feared that others’ reactions would prove they weren’t good enough. Perhaps I worried about being exposed as a creative charlatan, a dilettante, a fool.
One definition of shame is that we feel weak and inadequate in a realm where we think we’re supposed to be strong and competent.
I sent stories to literary journals because only anonymous editors would read them, and their reactions didn’t matter as much to me. Even when a story of mine was published, I rarely gave it to friends and family, and I declined invitations to read in public.
I like to write about the underbelly of life, the sordid moments and unspoken desires that lace through people’s consciousness, and I suppose I feared that people would make judgments of me based on such stories.
It’s a common writer’s fear—that one’s life will be confused with the text. Since I grew up in a small town, where lives were constantly under scrutiny, such a fear was embedded within me and had surely become magnified over the years.
Yet somewhere deep down, sharing a story was at the heart of why I became a writer. Self-expression can be just for yourself, and I write primarily for myself, but I also write to put stories into the world and to connect with others.
The craft of how you share
This is on my mind because I just read
’s most recent newsletter, The Creative Shift (which I recommend), and he said: “We often talk about creative work itself as a craft, and I believe that how we share is a craft, as well.”Dan made a list of challenges he’s heard from writers about sharing:
It feels like an unwanted obligation.
Sharing triggers complex feelings of fear of being seen.
They worry it changes their identity from a true artist to a scammy marketer.
Thinking of sharing their work makes them feel alone, as they struggle to know what to do to effectively share their work, without embarrassing themselves.
It causes apprehension about having their life influenced by big tech companies, algorithms, and a pressure to overshare.
I’ve felt all of the above, and I’ll feel all of the above again (maybe even after sending this newsletter), so I appreciate Dan’s notion to elevate sharing to a craft. “You can attend to this craft in a manner that fills you up inside, instead of depleting you.”
That’s the key, right? Is sharing an act of generosity? Do you feel that in sharing you’re not only giving something to the world—a window into life, into yourself—but that by sharing you’re also giving something to yourself?
Dan lists these three components to think about:
Having a clarity of focus, and approaching sharing with an intention that is authentic to who you are, not compromised by expectations of others. This should be a process that honors your boundaries.
Showing up to share as part of a regular routine, attending to this work not as a single spectacular moment, but as an integral part of honoring what you write and create.
Making small improvements over time, and feeling satisfaction in celebrating what you learn along the way. Even when you “fail” with one specific thing you try, there is a learning that is essential to improving your craft. This is also where useful discoveries happen, which can spark new ideas that feel right.
Talking yourself into sharing, not out of it
I broke out of my non-sharing stance by starting to share stories with a friend years ago. The simple act of giving a story to another made me realize how the closures of solitude had made me into a stingy writer, and how the act of writing changed when I did so with the idea of touching the person who would read it.
After all, the urge to be a writer is a generous act at its core: we want to share our story with others, to give them a world that will open doors to insights and flights of the imagination.
The only way to achieve that is through an openness of spirit that can feel dangerous—or even be dangerous. A good story occurs when an author travels, or even plummets, into the depths of vulnerability and genuinely opens his or her soul in search of truths that otherwise go untold. My favorite stories are the ones where I feel as if I’m in an intimate conversation with the author.
To tell your story in your way, to confront difficult truths and risk putting your story out there, takes courage. Such courage is challenging, of course. It requires overcoming the fear of shame—the feeling that we’re flawed, unworthy—and shame can be a noisy beast. It screams, “You’re not good enough!” in a myriad of ways.
Art is fundamentally an act of exposure.
I suppose such unspoken thoughts were why I didn’t share my stories for so many years. But I had to ask myself, why did I become a writer in the first place?
I made a list. And here’s what I discovered was on it: I wanted to put words to the shadowy corners of people’s souls, to understand the desperate lunges people take to give life meaning. I wanted to explore the enigmatic paradoxes of being, how desire can conflict with belief, how yearning can lead to danger.
Life is so mysterious, nuanced, ineffable—equally disturbing as it is beautiful—so I decided it was my duty as a writer to be brave enough to risk ridicule in order to bring my truths to light. Why write a sanitized version of life? I decided that what is most important to me must be spoken, no matter if I’m belittled for it, because only in such acts do we connect and understand each other.
Art is fundamentally an act of exposure. An artist opens the closets, dares to go into the dark basements, and rummages through the attics of our souls.
By sharing your stories, I suspect that you won’t find shame—you’ll find enlivening connection. People will appreciate your moxie and your generosity. They’ll applaud you for telling their story, the one they can’t tell themselves.
Join the Art of Brevity book club!
I'm excited by this new thing I'm doing with Plottr—a book club ... craft talk ... writing workshop ... with my book The Art of Brevity.
I've grouped chapters into six weekly themes—such as "finding creativity in constraints," "the art of omission," and "telling stories through found objects." Each class we'll discuss a theme in my book and I'll give writing exercises as we study the art of brevity.
Choose between two cohorts. The Tuesday class meets at 7 p.m. Eastern, starting Tuesday April 30, and the Sunday class meets at 12 p.m. Eastern starting Sunday, May 5. The course meets six times.
Because a quote
“If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can’t survive.”
~ Brené Brown
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End notes
What I’m reading: Elwin Cotman’s Weird Black Girls isn’t easily described because it’s so many things. Elwin calls himself a fantasy writer, but I don’t want to put him into any category. I read every one of his sentences slowly, with careful attention, because you have to pay attention to each word (and the combinations of words he puts together are trips unto themselves). I interviewed him for Write-minded (in an upcoming episode), and I loved the way he talked about writing as much as his writing. I predict a wild number of awards for him.
What I’m watching: When I can’t figure out what to watch, I often watch a movie from my youth, and my cursor recently landed on Basquiat, which I’ve seen innumerable times and love. The film was my introduction to the actor Jeffrey Wright. It was my introduction to Basquiat. And I’ve never been able to get either out of my mind. This is one of the best films about making art, and a great film about New York City in the 80s as well.
What I’m listening to: Did you think I was going to say Taylor Swift’s Tortured Poets Department? Yeah, it’s on my list. Just because Taylor. But I’ve been indulging in Alvarius B., thanks to
’s mention in his enjoyably erudite, witty, and always surprising newsletter, Sleveen, which include his weekly dispatches on culture, criticism, the craft of writing, and the shifting reality of these United States — plus reprints of his work in Spin, Rolling Stone, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Film Comment, etc. Subscribe to Sleveen!What I’m photographing: Truth be told this is an old one, but … I’ve got Basquiat on the mind. I spotted this somewhere in San Francisco one day a couple of years ago.
Wow, loved this! Thank you for the kind mention Grant!
Sounds like someone needs to write “The Art of Sharing”? The kids like to bring home one-liners from school and “Sharing is caring” could apply here too. Caring meaning you care enough about what you’ve written to share it--and you care enough about the recipient to want them to receive it.