The Line Between Personal And Public
Tuesday, March 23, 2010 Question of the day: My husband wrote a book about his dysfunctional childhood that is too painful for him to revisit. How should he deal with it, if at all?
Well, here's the thing: sometimes, a book isn't meant to be published, it's simply meant to be a place to store our grief. And it sounds like this may be the case for your husband. I think that every author has an essay, a piece, a something that is simply too personal for us to share with the public but that doesn't mean that it's not a piece worth writing, and to me, it sounds like this is the case for your husband. He got what he needed out of the writing process itself, and for him, that's more than enough.
I was actually discussing something similar with a friend of mine recently: we've both written intensely personal essays that we're contemplating submitting for publication, and we were chatting about our mixed feelings about exposing these essays -and the skeletons inside - to the general public. I'm okay with the line that mine draws, my friend was not okay with hers, so while I'll be sending mine in, she recognizes that writing the essay alone was enough for her. But certainly, it raises the question: what are you willing to expose as a writer? For me, there are some lines I won't cross: I don't write about my marriage, and I rarely write about my children. These are my private sanctuaries, and I don't want to open them up to criticism or really, anyone else's involvement. But I'm pretty open and honest about previous relationships, mistakes I've made in life, etc...in other words, anything that I'm responsible for, I'm okay with. That's my line. It's not everyone else's, and everyone else - your husband included - has to figure out what works for them. To me, it sounds as if he has. So know that the writing process was probably catharsis enough for him, and really, in the end, that's a pretty great thing.
Writers out there: I'd love to hear - have you ever struggled with where you draw the line and whether or not you should publish something? How did you resolve it?
Craft, Life as a writer
Reader Comments (15)
Well said.
Like you said, I think every individual/writer has to draw that line for themselves. I too have written intensely personal essays -- one in particular I can think of, I wrote for a college Creative Nonfiction class, and let's just say that's the only crit of my career that didn't go well. (In the sense that I ended up fighting back tears, even though the writing was considered strong.)
At the end of the day, I'm a fiction writer, and I've realized that in my writing I can work through or digest a lot of deeply personal things, as long as I fictionalize it. And I don't mean just changing people's names or locations. I mean *really* fictionalizing it. I think you can write about an issue that's meaningful to you without it being based on real life -- as long as the emotional kernel is there.
In short, if I really want/need to write about something (nonfic) but I'm not comfortable with the idea of it being published, my "solution" is usually to fictionalize it. I do blog, and write a monthly (nonfic) column for a local paper, but I know where my line of comfort is. To cross it, I must turn to fiction.
I don't write non-fiction very often. I have an essay about new motherhood with my second child that was published in an anthology that has not been widely noticed. But I thought long and hard about its content, and ran it by my husband before submitting it. I tried to imagine the harshest, most judgmental reactions to decide if I could live with that. I decided I could.
Because that's the world we live in now. The Internet makes for emotional, instant, fierce reaction behind the scrim of anonymity, or if not anonymous, the shield of the computer screen. People say cruel things online they would never dream of saying in person.
I think a writer really has to consider the worst possible reaction to decide if she can still live with the fallout.
Your blog post is timely. I write personal essays and have been blogging for almost two years. Initially, I wrote about situations that I had fully processed, believing that distance helps create the perspective necessary to tell a story. Now that I write for Hybrid Mom, I have talked about parenting struggles. I never intended to write about my life with children as often as I do, but I'm enjoying being about to write about this time in my life (while simultaneously trying to process it.) Although most readers provide positive and constructive feedback, it's unsettling when I receive harsh comments. Ultimately I enjoy connecting with others and learning from our experiences.
Kristan-That's always good advice, to fictionalize something too personal. You just need to be sure that you can separate the two when it comes time to use your imagination, which is something I struggled with in my first (never published) manuscript.
Kris-I like that advice a lot. Consider the worst that can be said and be sure that you can live with it. I'm about to submit a Modern Love column, and I'm nervous for this very reason. It feels very exposing.
If I wouldn't want my kids to read it, I don't try to publish it. They're 18 and 14 and have read each personal essay I've published and they've all dealt with parenting, the death of their father, being a single mom etc. But I don't write about my divorce (from their dad, before he died). Those are things they don't need to know about. I have an essay brewing about selling my engagement ring diamond. I think it would hurt their feelings so I probably will never write it. Let's just say that diamond wasn't worth what I thought it was worth. And there's no need for me to make my kids feel badly. But that's just me. Plenty of people do it!
Great post, Allison. I write memoir, and I'm determined to write honestly about the hard stuff, but I always pass things by my husband before I send them out. I purposely try not to write too much about my kids and/or my husband on my blog because blogs feel too easy to access (and comment on). I have been working on an essay for over a year, though, with which I'm really struggling. I know the content needs to be out there, but I also know the criticism is going to be harsh. In this case, I think I need to reframe the piece a little to make sure people don't misunderstand me. But if I decide to publish it, I'll need to brace myself.
Very interesting and thought-provoking entry. I've written personal stuff but, after completing, decided not to send it out as well. Allison, as you mentioned in your response, it was great for me to just write it and leave it at that. On a side note, I've read a lot of author interviews where people ask if the character in the book is the author or someone they know. I think that's where Kristan's comment comes to play where we fictionlize events that we feel strongly about or work through things that have happened to us (maybe we change the actual outcome in our stories). Nice post, Allison! P.S. I should be working :-).
Great post! Sometimes I read memoirs and think "How could the author expose that about his/her own life, parents, siblings," etc. I write women's fiction but I also write personal essays in a local newspaper. I draw on the experiences I have with my husband, kids, parents, siblings, etc to write essays but I make sure not to cross the line into intensely personal territory. At times, I have a great topic that would work perfectly, but it would expose too much. I guess the line is different for everyone. . .
This brings up another question: What do you do with that book or essay when you are done? Should the husband in the letter leave a copy of his book on his hard drive or with his lawyer, to be destroyed after his death, or perhaps shred the thing in a cathartic gesture, what? I have friends who have stumbled into disturbing territory on the death of a parent so I am wary of leaving private material that they may someday have to sift through. On the other hand, the memoirs will lose their ability to cause pain over time and it would be a pity to throw away something of value. I have no answers here, sorry.
It's interesting you say you don't write about your marriage, because I do--fairly often--and though my husband always says it's fine, there have been some issues between us regarding this in the past. Now he says "you can say whatever you want about me as long as its true." That's a tricky thing, because often his truth and my truth are completely different. My truth, for example, might be that he was being a huge pain in the ass one day, but he might believe he was actually being helpful. I don't write about him being a pain in the ass, per se, but I do write about him in the sense that he can't provide the support that a BFF can, and he has taken that personally even though the women who respond say "I totally relate. Your husband sounds lovely, but men just aren't the same." He's generally a good sport about it, but of course he will read stuff about him more closely than anyone else does. So I run everything by him. The most recent thing I wrote about him, he thought might not be accurate but said "since I know we're in a good place, you should do whatever you want." I believed in it, and believed it was honest but not at all negative, so II published it, and there was no fall out.
I did, once, publish an essay about him that got ANGRY responses from the anonymous cyber-dwellers out there. It didn't bother my husband that they said our marriage was going to fall apart and that he was probably cheating, but it bothered me! (I actually blogged about this very incident: http://mwfseekingbff.com/2010/03/09/husbands-vs-bffs/)
Unfortunately, our sufferings are not always interesting to other people - so the criticism and rejection could bite deep.
I can speak from experience here....I wrote a memoir that was published last spring. It is about my experience as a widow and breast cancer survivor. During the writing process it was difficult to know how much to share as most of it was personal. When it came out my family was upset with me so that was tough to deal with but more difficult than that was reading a couple of bad reviews....it is really tough when your personal experience gets judged but I didn't think about that when I wrote the book. I knew I wanted to help others with cancer by sharing my story.
I also didn't realize how tough it would be during the promotion to constantly relive my experiences over and over. Sometimes it feels like reopening an old wound. So I can certainly understand the author's hesitation in publishing his story. He is right to want to leave it behind him. I say take time to really consider that as the potential for people to say bad things, judge your personal life, and having to relive it over and over in order to get the book out there can be tough.
Personally for me what I tried to focus on was those I wanted to help and inspire with my story. That is what pushes me through the difficult experiences that have come up. Everyone is different though. As Allison said ....sometimes the writing process is cathartic enough....
Great post, topic, and discussion. It's so nice to hear I am not alone with my fears of sharing too personal things in my personal essays and memoirs. I like to think that if it's something I'm scared of printing, then it's good because it's something others are probably scared to talk about but need to read. I'm still trying to find the line between what should be published and what should only be written for me. I don't know that the answers will ever be clear. When the piece is only about me, I usually am fine with it. But when it involves family and work, the decisions get tougher.
Because I miss writing personal essays and want to write about things I feel others would like to read, but don't want associated with my publicly, I've decided to create an additional blog where I can post my essays anonymous.
I got this idea from the incredible Sixth in Line anonymous blog. The author of it writes deeply about her relationship with her declining mother, as well as other topics.