Finding Your Voice

I’ve been on the receiving end of a lot of requests for information in my time, almost always having to do with martial arts or writing, and for the most part I’m happy to help.  I’d be a little disappointed if all of my efforts as a writer led to echoing silence.  But sometimes I hit the delete key because the person asking is just clueless (or a jackass) and I don’t have the time or energy to respond.  Here are my suggestions for getting it right, whether you’re asking me or some other random stranger to give you advice or information:

• Do your research.  Before you start asking live humans to take time out of their lives to deal with you, look it up.  Google is your friend.  There’s so much information online and in bookstores that practically every question you can ask has already been answered.  In other words, why are you emailing me to ask, “How does an aspiring writer break into print?” when there are approximately ninety thousand books, two million websites, four hundred thousand blogs and any number of print magazines dedicated to answering this very question. 
• Then do more research.  So maybe you don’t want to know “How does an aspiring writer break into print?”  Maybe you want to know how I, personally, broke into print (or Suzanne Brockmann or John Lescroart or whomever).  I’ve written or talked about it in at least fifteen different places, and so has every other writer who has met with even a tiny modicum of success.  Remember, Google is your friend.  It’s not like writers are keeping secrets about this stuff and you have to beg them for the decoder ring.  The information is already out there. 
• No one owes you anything – especially if you don’t already have a personal or business relationship already established.  I have a challenging and demanding job, challenging and demanding (yet wonderful) clients, a kid with lots of needs whom I love spending time with, friends I adore, missions I care about, personal and professional goals, demons and dreams.  You’re asking me to take time away from them and devote it to you, a random stranger who probably doesn’t even spell my name right.  And you know what?  99% of the time, as long as you’re not a jackass, I do respond to you.  But you’ll help your case a lot more if you mention you’ve read something I wrote or heard an interview with me.  You know why?  Because then you’re not a random stranger. 
• Ask a specific question.  I’m probably going to respond to most “How does an aspiring writer break into print?” question with my standard, “Read the books on writing at your local library, then get back to me.”  Or I’ll direct you to some of the reams of writing I’ve already done on the subject.  So if you want an actual thought-out answer, ask me something new, or something to do with you.  Or at least something specific!  A recent example: a reader asked me what board-breaking I had to do for my black belt test.  This didn’t take long to answer and it sparked a very interesting email exchange with the reader.  We had a conversation.  She told me things about her experience and I told her things about mine and it was very satisfying.  If she’d asked, “What’s it like to train in martial arts?” I would have brushed her off.  I’ve written ten or fifteen books that cover that subject and it’s not something I can summarize in five sentences. 
• Don’t ask for the universe.  A couple of specific questions are fine.  Ten or fifteen is more than anyone I know is willing to answer, including me. 
• Common courtesy won’t kill you.  “Please” is nice.  So is “thank you for your time.” 
• Find a way to make it useful for more than one person.  I’m more likely to spend time giving information it if will benefit more than one person.  If you plan to write a blog post, write an article for your school newspaper or share what you’ve learned with your writing group, I’m more inclined to help. (Tell me what you’re doing ahead of time, though). 
• Mention any mitigating circumstances.  If you’re twelve years old, say so.  I’m nicer to kids than to grown adults.  Plus I watch my language better.

On the theme of Open the Office Door, an excerpt from my book Dojo Wisdom for Writers on a concept I love:

Lesson #8: Keep the Beginner’s Mind

            Martial artists respect the beginner’s mind because it’s open to new experiences and isn’t as critical as it later becomes.  Someone who is just beginning to train in the martial arts doesn’t have bad habits or preconceived ideas that she must overcome before she can learn the principles the teacher communicates.  As students progress and become more knowledgeable, they become less open and less flexible.  They know that there=s a right way and a wrong way to perform a sidekick, and they’ll point out if you=re doing it the wrong way.

            A good martial artist eventually matures beyond this stage and returns to the beginning in the sense that she opens herself to new experiences, new techniques, new ways of performing the old kicks.  She understands that there are many different, but still legitimate, ways to perform a sidekick, and while she may do it a certain way, it is not the only way, or even the best way.

            By maintaining an open beginner=s mind – being willing to learn and to not close yourself to new and different experiences and projects – you can move toward mastery.  A writing colleague of mine reads at least one writing book a month because even after years in the business he can often glean one idea or strategy that can make a difference in his career.  Often the authors of these writing books have less experience than he does, but that doesn’t stop him.

     Beginning writers naturally keep an open mind to what they learn about writing.  Their beginner’s mind is fully operational.  The trick is to remain open even after you’ve achieved some success as a writer.  More advanced writers are often defeated by an inner, censoring critic that says things like, “That’s okay for beginners to do, but I=m much too experienced for that.”  For those writers, staying open means occasionally doing something “only” a beginner would do, like submitting work to a contest, or following a piece of advice that “never works for me” just to see what happens.

Yesterday I wrote about how I think it’s important to be fair in writing about others when describing our personal experiences, but at the same time not letting those concerns stop us from writing about ourselves.  Over the years, I’ve developed some rules of thumb for these kinds of essays:

1.  Is it necessary and true?  My ex-husband’s hurt feelings over a casual comment I made about him in an essay made me realize that what I’d written about him wasn’t necessary to tell the story – the story wasn’t about him and he didn’t figure in except in this minor aside.  It wasn’t necessary.

2. Does it need to be broadcast throughout the known universe?  I’ve had bitterly painful experiences that I want to write about, mostly for catharsis, and there is something healing about the process.  That doesn’t mean I need to immediately find a market for what I’ve written or post it on my blog.

3.  Can it be as effective (or possibly more effective) as fiction?  Some conflicts I’ve been through have found their way into my fiction, where they work better and don’t require me to defend myself for writing about the situation.

4.  Can it wait until the principals are dead?  For particular kinds of memoir, you may want to wait until the people you want to write about can’t be hurt over what you want (or need) to say about what happened.

5.  Are you prepared for the backlash?  Understand what libel (and slander) is, and make sure you’re not doing it.  Also be aware that people react in weird ways even to things you and I might think are complimentary or at least neutral.

6.  Remember what it feels like to be on the other end.  We all have filters we use to perceive ourselves.  Other people’s perceptions, however true and honest, can be jarring.

7.  How involved is ego and revenge?  When you’re smarting, it’s easy to see personal writing as payback time.  I have a family member I’d love to excoriate in print because of her basic jackassery, but the only purpose it would serve would be to slap said family member publicly, and that’s not what I’m about.  I’m sure I’ve done my share of jackassery, and I don’t really want to see it on the front page of the New York Times (or the back page of the Washington Post, but I’m not bitter).  At any rate, this family member will show up in a novel sometime, and that’ll be just as fine, plus my jackassery will not exceed hers, which it would if I just did things out of meanness.

8.  Don’t let the fear stop you.  Meet your fear, say hello, take baby steps, ask others for advice, reflect on what you need to say and why you need to say it. Then do as you must. 

Why did you have to write about that moment?

A friend of mine wrote and published online a moving essay about her sister’s death, and this is the response she got from a family member.  My friend did some soul-searching afterwards, trying to find an answer.  She reported the question to me the other day and in my usual compassionate way, I said, “That’s a stupid damned question.”  She had to write about that moment because that’s what writers do.  They write about moments like that and illuminate something of our shared humanity when they do it.

But I didn’t think it was a stupid damned question because the answer is self evident.  It wasn’t, in fact, a question at all.  It was a criticism and a judgment.  You shouldn’t have written about that is really what this person was saying.  So, if that’s the point this person wants to make, then that’s what this person should say to my friend.  Kiss my ass is the response I coached her to practice.    

Of course, whenever we write about other people, we have to wrestle with the question of whether it’s fair and how they’ll feel about it, but a beautiful tribute to a dead sister isn’t exactly bitter libel.

When I write about my personal life, I usually write about my writing or about my daughter.  When I write about my daughter, I sometimes describe her challenges.  I try to do it as honestly as possible, but my purpose isn’t to talk about her differences, it’s to emphasize how she teaches me to be a better person through our relationship.  If I end up having to criticize someone else to make a point, I do it without naming the people involved and without giving the kind of identifying information that would make them immediately recognizable.  This is because I know I’m only presenting my side of the story and these other people won’t get a chance to tell their side. 

There are whole categories of experiences I don’t write about because I can’t figure out how to do it fairly, and fairness matters to me.  On the other hand, I occasionally make off-hand comments about my ex-husband that do not always cast him in the most flattering light (hey, he’s an ex for a reason).  I wouldn’t even have been aware of this tendency except that the other day he mentioned that he’d read an essay I posted on my blog.  He quoted the offending passage at me with the lift of his brow, and I said, “Uh, it would probably be a good thing for our relationship if you stopped reading my blog.”

Fortunately, he doesn’t get all twisted out of shape over these things (he’s had plenty of time to get used to me), but it reminded me of the power we have when we tell our stories.  We have to use that power wisely, and not gratuitously, but we also can’t keep quiet just because we might hurt someone’s feelings.

What are your rules of thumb for writing about your personal experience?