Vulnerable

Writing is good therapy. I love pouring my heart out in my journal. It helps me process life. I like to pray, reflect, and even rant if I must. I think it helps me in my relationships because I can say things to myself that might be hurtful if I said them out loud. More often than not, I manage to work things out before saying something I might regret. It’s why my journals are private, meant only for me.

But what about my other writing? I know there are a lot of closet writers out there. People who write stories and poems or other pieces, but who hold them close for fear of having to share. Sharing one’s words makes you VULNERABLE, and being VULNERABLE is scary.

I know what I’m talking about. I was a closet writer for more than a decade. (Sixteen years to be exact.) That’s the length of time it took me to write my first novel. I was clacking away for all that time, working on several novels at once, actually, but never, ever did I want to show them to anyone. To allow someone else to read my words felt like standing naked in a crowded room. It’s overwhelming and scary and you feel exposed.

Then I finally took a tiny first step and let one of my daughters read my finished manuscript. It was safer to let someone I trusted, who I knew loved me for me, not my writing, to look at it first. I guess I felt safe with her, and even though she found lots of things to critique, it made me feel brave because I’d put myself out there, even in a small way. That led to gradual next steps of submitting to editors, and agents and finally, years later, owning my voice as a writer.

It’s hard to believe that first tiny step was more than twenty years ago, now. (I’ve been writing for close to forty years and had my first book published fifteen years ago. How time flies.) But I can still feel the fear of that first time I exposed myself and let someone else read my words. Sometimes I still feel it, but I remind myself that vulnerability is an integral part of this writing gig so I better get over myself!

This article first appeared on the InScribe Writers’ Online Blog in October of 2024.