Write it Real

Why Authors Should Journal

Write it real…

That’s what a friend and a valued member of my critique group said to me last week. The chapter that had just been critiqued was “entertaining and well written,” my friend remarked, yet something was missing. “It needs more of you,” he’d said. “Write it real.”

This is exactly what you want from a critique group. Honest feedback that will help you bring your writing to the next level. Yet hearing these words is especially painful for a memoirist like myself, because really…it’s all about me. (that’s what the genre implies) I think my friend was saying my work needed less fluff… more emotion, more authenticity. In my heart of hearts, I knew he was right. But no matter what your genre, how does one go about “writing it real?”

Finding your True Self

On a recent trip to visit family, my brother-in-law gave me a book from his collection that his father had given him years ago. “Something to read on the plane,” he’d said.

Not expecting much, I put the little book into my carry-on. On the plane, I took it out and flipped it over to the back blurb.:

“But we must try to find our True Conscience, our True self, the very Center, for this is the only first-rate choice-making center. Here lies all originality, talent, honour, truthfulness, courage and cheerfulness.”

This caught my attention. I read on.

One little gem

As expected, much of the book is dated (her language and sentence structure are charming) yet, some of her thoughts on writing stand the test of time. One little gem, the bit I was seeking, jumped out at me:

“This is why I think it’s good to keep a diary. I don’t mean a “had lunch” diary. But do this: write everyday, as fast and carelessly as you possibly can, without reading it again. In six months look at it. You will see that what you have written with the most slovenly freedom–in those parts there will be vitality, birlliance, beauty.”

Keep a Journal

I have been keeping a daily journal for several years. https://seamslikeastory.com/the-blank-page/ I now realize that much of what I write is a “had lunch” diary. That in itself is not a bad thing, yet sometimes I hold back on my journaling, afraid to write my true thoughts, what I’m really thinking.

I think Brenda Ueland means that when we write carefully–worried only about grammar and spelling and what people might think of us–we write in an inhibited way. It is not the core of who we are an our readers will see this in our work. We are flat. Flinging the words “slovenly” out there daily, in the privacy of a journal that no one will see might just be the practice I need to find my authentic core. The polishing up (editing) comes second to the inspiration.

Work in Progress

Like all writers, I’m a work in progress. I am presently working on my second book, a travel memoir. Will Brenda’s words and the words I have “written with the morst slovenly freedom” in my journal lead to “vitality, brilliance, and beauty” in my published writing? Stay tuned.