Merciless

Beauty

&

The Critical

Beast

Blogging

vs.

Other Writing Forms

"Becoming a writer is about becoming conscious. When you're conscious and writing from a place of insight and simplicity and real caring about the truth, you have the ability to throw the lights on for your reader. He or she will recognize his or her life and truth in what you say, in the pictures you have painted, and this decreases the terrible sense of isolation that we have all had too much of."

– Anne Lamott

The relationship between audience and blogger

is at onceintimate yet also

fundamentally unbalanced.

Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again.

— Anne Lamott

Writing Memoir

• Memoir is just ONE person’s truth

• Often the sharp edges are worn down

• Honesty in memoir is often slightly different than truth

"If something inside of you is real, we will probably find it interesting, and it will probably be universal. So you must risk placing real emotion at the center of your work. Write straight into the emotional center of things. Write toward vulnerability. Risk being unliked. Tell the truth as you understand it. If you’re a writer you have a moral obligation to do this. And it is a revolutionary act—truth is always subversive."

— Anne Lamott

Head vs. Heart and Gut

• That which is true is the most universal.

• Brutal honesty made beautiful with words is merciless.

• When you write from the heart, your story becomes both beautiful and universal.

• Letting go of fear and writing your truth…the greatest challenge, yet the greatest rewards.

Owning our story and loving ourselves

through that process is the bravest thing

that we will ever do.

– Brene Brown from her book The Gifts of Imperfection

Responsibility

• What does the blogger owe the reader?

• What does the reader owe the blogger?

• How does the blogger share truths when the readers turn from fans to critics?

I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of hunger for life that gnaws in us all.

– Richard Wright

The delicate dance between blogger and reader is one full of joy, resonance, and often love.

Be brave.

Use the critics, instead of letting them silence you.