She Asked To Read My Writing...

She Asked To Read My Writing… Some People Don’t Get A Vote

I was at my local Starbucks, grabbing my usual breve latte with two pumps sugar-free vanilla. Julie is a barista and, I recently learned, goes to my church. She’s the wife of one of the men in my weekly men’s group.

She looked at me and asked, “Daniel, what do you do?”

I hesitated because this…writing…is new to me. I had only set up my Substack earlier that day. I might have blushed.

“I’m a writer. I write.” My pits dripped with sweat at the audacity of my claim. I felt like a fraud. A liar. I grimaced, hoping something close to a smile reached my eyes.

Julie got excited. “Can we read your stuff? Do you have a book?” I told her I’m working on some stuff and that I’d share it with her soon. “I can’t wait!” I thought, “I can.” I actually thought that thought.

That encounter left me shaken for a days. Though I barely know Julie, I do know she’s a gentle and positive soul. Someone who looks for ponies in piles of poop. The kind of person who’d write a thank you card if you gave her a potato for her birthday. Julie is the kind of person you want in your corner. But her asking to read my writing scared me. Terrified me is closer to the truth.

Here was someone excited about the fact that I write. And she wants to read my writing.

It took some time to work through the flop-sweat inducing terror. Of course I was wrestling with the whole, what makes a writer a “writer?”

In his book Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke didn’t say “if you wake up in the morning and all you can think of doing is write, then you’re a writer.” This is a paraphrase used in Sister Act 2. Rilke said,

“Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this should be affirmative, if you may meet this earnest question with a strong and simple ‘I must,’ then build your life according to this necessity.”

Rilke’s admonition hits deep. I write because I must. But how do I ensure the right people read it?

I’ve observed writers on the inter webs say they keep their writing from the people that know them. I admit this was part of my hesitation with Julie. Writing is one thing. What if people actually see what I write? What would they think of me?

The fear is real. I know I want to write well. And have people read and understand my writing. The process is fraught with risks.

People could judge me a loon. They might mock me in the comments. Or eviscerate my weak arguments with their own brilliant writing.

A dissonance for me is reading their confession of hiding their writing on the inter webs. In public. Where I, a stranger, am able to read it. If we publish our writing in a public space like Substack, is it realistic to think what we write will remain “private?”

The inter webs are a “big” place. It’s easy to believe that one teensy little essay is safe amidst the millions upon millions of people and pages and blogs and togs and bogs of logorrhea. <–it means uncontrolled wordiness

But search engines shrink the inter webs. And people are curious.

I know for some, safety is a real issue. Physically and emotionally. There are people who don’t deserve to know what you think. They’re cruel and selfish and would leverage anything they can to one up you. Or wound you. Or manipulate you. Just because they’re awful human beings.

A writer I admire on Substack wrote a note reminding us that sharing your pain and struggles publicly might be healing but, it also teaches people how to hurt you.

It’s true: Some people can’t be trusted. Handing them the secrets of your heart in your writing is risky at best and stupid at worst. The danger is obvious. This isn’t fear, but hard-won knowledge that people can’t get your goat if they don’t know where you keep your goat.

Wouldn’t you rather write without stopping mid-sentence because you just know for certain how that person will react? Why work to make sure you keep the names straight, the specifics vague enough, and avoid the kinds of singular details that only you remember and one other person knows. You know, the person you’re trying to HIDE all this from.

It’s exhausting to remember who knows what, where. Who follows who, because if she knows, they all know.

Why go thru the effort? Where’s the real you in all of this? How can you write with honesty when you have to separate yourself from your writing to do so?

I wondered about those people from whom we try to hide. Those family members, exes, or old school “chums” that scare the bejeebers out of us. What if “those” people are in the same room with you? Do you have to silence your voice? What do you gain? Self-preservation? Peace? Or do you do it because you know they have no respect for you? To speak would be…stupid. Silence preserves your voice.

What changes when you’re in a different room? Different people? Filled with the Julies of the world? You can breathe, be yourself. Talk and share with honesty and commitment to your ideas. People are curious, learn from you, and treat you with…what is that? Respect. Silence is no longer golden. Your voice is.

What’s the difference? The different rooms? Of course that’s part of it. The people in each room affect your willingness to use your voice. Emotional maturity recognizes you must preserve your essential self. Especially from people who don’t care about you. But the more important difference is what you DO with your voice in those rooms.

You’re the same person in both rooms. And how you use your voice is a difference. In the first room, people are clear they don’t value you your voice. They treat you poorly because…whatever their reasons are. Their idiocy and cruelty and nastiness doesn’t diminish your voice. It reveals their voices as ugly. And harsh. And difficult to hear. The sheer cacophany of their selfish fatuities would drown out your voice anyway. So you don’t.

In the second room, you speak with your full voice. Ideas, expressed. Fears, expressed. Hopes, aspirations, the things you’ve learned and understood, spoken from the unique perspective that is all you. And what people do with that is part of the appeal. The affirmation, the “feck yeahs!” you get when they see themselves in your writing is … well, it’s life-giving. And restorative. And helps bring out in us parts of ourselves that may have been hidden and tucked away, or beaten down because of the people in the first room.

And if the people in the first room hear your voice, they might very well laugh. They may mock you, wondering “Who the hell do you think you are? Brene Brown?” As if they would even know who Brene Brown is.

Or…or, they might be surprised by your voice. Like, “She’s like Brene Brown.” And learn something about themselves and how they’ve behaved. That might create the fireworks you fear. Blow things up in ways that make you wonder “Why do I even care about what they think of me.” Because people would rather preserve the lies they believe than face the truth of their ugly selves.

Or, they might not even notice. Or care. Even if you shared the link to your post. A big yawn of silent contempt. Or indifference. That might sting a little. Or a lot. But it wouldn’t surprise you.

Writing with your full voice doesn’t mean braying about. Or shrinking. It means you don’t have to self-edit. Or stand in silence. It means you say what you mean. And let people wrestle with it. Or ignore it. Maybe be changed by it. It means raising your voice not in volume but in clarity and witness to what’s real inside of you.

When I see Julie, I’ll give her my Substack. I mean, if we’re going to write, why not do so with our full voice?

restack 1st promo note Writing with your full voice doesn’t mean braying about. Or shrinking. It means you don’t have to self-edit. Or stand in silence. It means you say what you mean. And let people wrestle with it. Or ignore it. Maybe be changed by it. It means raising your voice not in volume but in clarity and witness to what’s real inside of you.

Move 1 note with restack Julie asked to see my writing. I flop-sweated right there in the Starbucks lobby.

So I wrote a whole essay on why I almost didn’t hand it over. And why I will.

Move 1 PM note with restack

IG post caption

As a writer, a real…fear(?) I carry: someone I know reading my stuff. And seeing the real me.

Here’s what I figured out. https://fullvoice.substack.com

carousel 1: When she asked to read my writing… My armpits dripped. 2: The terror of writing in Full Voice isn’t strangers reading you. It’s people who know you reading you. 3: I used to write disguised. Edited myself so the wrong people wouldn’t recognize me.

It works. It’s also exhausting. 4: Then I figured it out.

Some people don’t get a vote. 5: So you raise your voice, not in volume, but in clarity and bear witness to what’s real inside of you.

With that golden voice that is yours.