WRITING ABOUT SECRETS AND OBSESSIONS

“To gain your own voice, you have to forget about having it heard.”
—Allen Ginsberg

A question that often comes up in my writing group, especially from the members who are memoirists and essayists: "Should I write about something that haunts me, even something offensive or shameful, that I don't feel comfortable sharing?" 

The best advice I ever had came from one of my own writing teachers: "Nothing is off limits for a writer. Write it for yourself. You can decide later whether or not to share it."

We writers often don't know exactly what we think or why certain obsessions keep surfacing until we allow ourselves to write freely. Certain motifs, symbols, and situations appear and reappear, even if we think we've changed the subject. An obsession or secret haunts our stories until we exorcise or claim the source from whence it came--those early guilty discoveries, those fire and brimstone sermons, that seductive aunt or uncle who stirred  the imagination. 

Knowing is powerful; decoding the mystery can lead into labyrinths of discovery.Writing is self-revelation. Writing is therapy. Write for yourself. 

Write it down. Let it marinate. Revisit it. Rewrite it. Transform it.  But write. WRITE ON!