Writing Honestly -
Part One
Sara Crummett Marx
03/17/2024
I’m trying to learn to write from the heart. I’m not talking a Valentine here, I mean really, truly from the heart. It’s been a rough go, I’m not gonna lie.
Back in January, some friends and I started meeting weekly on Zoom for a bit of a writer’s catch-up. For one hour we cheer each other on, discuss the writing process, recharge our batteries—all the good stuff. We also take turns reviewing a bit of each other’s work. This is how I came to read an excerpt of a friend’s memoir detailing a devastating personal tragedy. The work was raw, powerful, downright heartbreaking. I tearfully found myself checking over my shoulder as if I should guard my friend’s precious innermost thoughts. First, I felt fiercely protective of her story. Then I felt something I hadn’t expected: Envy.
I envied the bravery required to write it all out. It was as if she just pressed a button and took off. I had questions, like, had she used the delete button? Had she considered removing some of the most personal parts? Had she second-guessed her work or worried about not appealing to a mass audience? Would anyone purchase such a tragic book?
It wasn’t the first time my worrying over the business end clouded me from having a personal experience with writing, of mine or others. In fact, so much marketing worry had occurred inside my head that it had severely damaged my love for the craft.
Twenty years ago I published my novel and felt nothing but optimism for the career I’d been dreaming of since I was a kid. It didn’t really sell that well, but I believed in myself and kept writing. My second book was stolen from me (by a friend, no less) before it went to press. At the time I couldn’t afford to legally battle for my sole ownership (single parenting FTW!), so I pulled the plug on the project. The next was a wonderful collab based on a dear friend’s screen play. It reignited my enthusiasm for writing and led to four more in quick succession. I had a plan: keep writing and publishing and something might hit. Meanwhile, those meager residuals would surely start to add up…
Then a book hit the market that cast 50 shades of fear over anyone not writing a no-holds-barred sexy book. Almost overnight, publishing companies steered new releases that same shady direction. Though smut quotas were never really addressed (at least at my company), writers understood what audiences were buying and reading. Hey—I’m all for a bit of sexy detail, but I can’t just force that stuff in places where it didn’t belong! It started to feel a bit too far away for my voice. A few years back I wrote a rom-com that was rejected by a major publishing and TV network powerhouse. I was disappointed, but not nearly as much as when I saw what appeared to be my entire book in a TV movie, only the names of people, animals, and the town changed. Now, this happens all the time with such material and doesn’t mean anything was truly stolen from me. (I know what that feels like, trust me) TV and book trends change, authors try to follow. It happens. When I got over that part, I was struck by something else: I didn’t have a unique voice. It could have been anyone’s work. It was someone else’s work. I’d listened too hard to the instructions. I had followed them to the letter.
Suddenly I was afraid to write. I’d misplaced Sara’s voice. When I did start something, I wouldn’t finish it. At all times there were at least 50 fully formed outlines on my desktop, all of them non-starters. Did I still have something valuable to contribute to this market I love so much? I set out to see if I could find that voice.
Which brings us to the group, that Zoom, and my ever-loving friend just splashing her guts all over virtual paper!
How dare she do that?
Also, how did she do that?
I had so many questions I wanted to ask her. Instead, I submitted my two-cents which sounded shallow even to my ears. The look in her eyes said I’d failed her and I had. Days later she reached out and kindly suggested that if the content bothered me so much, might I focus on the editorial side of her work? Can you believe it? She was suffering, she was succeeding in documenting her journey, and she was trying to make me feel comfortable with her competency?
Embarrassed, I wrote her a long overdue apology. I didn’t bother explaining all the weird problems I discussed here—she’s been through enough and I’d sound like a narcissistic sociopath—my issues are not her problem. I explained that it would be rough for me to review any work that was so deeply personal, but vowed to try for input that wouldn’t dare reshape her brave narrative. Also, I told her never to let anyone (any marketer or publisher, family member or friend) change her voice.
Now I want to rediscover mine more than ever.
Each of us possesses a unique voice. Some are fortunate to enjoy the liberty to write freely, among other privileges, and have the capacity to do so. Sure, the marketers will persuade, the readers will dictate trends, family will tell you not to share anecdotes about eccentric relatives like Aunt Willy who dresses her cats in bonnets and makes bathtub gin. No matter the words and genres you change, don’t you dare change your voice. And if someone is persistent in trying to change your voice, get away from them. If you can’t get away, write it under a pen name, dammit.
I think I’ve made my point a few thousand times.
I’m throwing a Part One on this title because I know it’s going to come up quite a bit. Feel free to chime in, let us know what inspires you to write in your authentic voice, or where you are on your journey. Discussion helps more than I thought it would, so let’s keep talking.
Cheers!
Sara
In my ears: Taylor Swift (duh), Midnights Era.
On my nightstand: Dolly Alderson’s Ghosts.
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